Artist: Quincy Jones

Quincy Jones is an American record producer, songwriter, composer, arranger, and film and television producer. His career spans 70 years, with a record of 80 Grammy Award nominations, 28 Grammys, and a Grammy Legend Award in 1992. 

Jones came to prominence in the 1950s as a jazz arranger and conductor, before working on pop music and film scores. He moved easily between genres, producing pop hit records for Lesley Gore in the early 1960s (including "It's My Party") and serving as an arranger and conductor for several collaborations between the jazz artists Frank Sinatra and Count Basie.

In 1968, Jones became the first African American to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song for "The Eyes of Love," from the film,  Banning. Jones was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score for his work on the 1967 film, In Cold Blood, making him the first African American to be nominated twice in the same year. Jones produced three of the most successful albums by the pop star Michael Jackson: Off the Wall  (1979), Thriller (1982), and Bad (1987). In 1985, Jones produced and conducted the charity song "We Are the World", which raised funds for victims of famine in Ethiopia. 

In 1971, Jones became the first African American to be the musical director and conductor of the Academy Awards. In 1995, he was the first African American to receive the academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. He is tied with sound designer  Willie D. Burton as the second most Oscar-nominated African American, with seven nominations each. In 2013, Jones was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as the winner, alongside Lou Adler, of the  Ahmet Ertegun Award. He was named one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century by Time. 

At age 14, Jones introduced himself to 16-year-old  Ray Charles, after watching him play at the Black Elks Club. Jones cites Charles as an early inspiration for his own music career, noting that Charles overcame his blindness to achieve his musical goals.

In 1951, Jones earned a scholarship to Seattle University. After one semester, he transferred to what is now the Berklee College of Music in Boston on another scholarship. There, he played at Izzy Ort's Bar & Grille with Bunny Campbell and Preston Sandiford, whom he cited as important influences. He left his studies after receiving an offer to tour as a trumpeter, arranger, and pianist with bandleader  Lionel Hampton and embarked on his professional career. On the road with Hampton, he displayed a gift for arranging songs. He moved to New York City, where he received freelance commissions writing arrangements for Charles, who was by then a close friend, and for Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington,  Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Gene Krupa. 

In 1953, aged 20, Jones traveled with jazz bandleader Lionel Hampton for a European tour of the Hampton orchestra. He said the tour changed his view of racism in the United States: 

In early 1956, Jones accepted a temporary job at the CBS Stage Show, hosted by Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey. Soon after, as a trumpeter and musical director for Dizzy Gillespie, Jones went on tour of the Middle East and South America sponsored by the  United States Information Agency. After returning, he signed a contract with ABC-Paramount and started his recording career as the leader of his band. In 1957, he settled in Paris, where he studied composition and theory with Nadia Boulanger  and Olivier Messiaen, and performed at the Paris Olympia. He became music director at Barclay, a French record company and the licensee for  Mercury in France. 

In 1961, Jones was promoted as the vice-president of Mercury, becoming the first African American to hold the position. During the same year, at the invitation of director Sidney Lumet, he composed music for The Pawnbroker (1964). It was the first of his nearly 40 major motion picture scores.

In the 1960s, Jones worked as an arranger for Billy Eckstine, Ella Fitzgerald, Shirley Horn, Peggy Lee,  Nana Mouskouri, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, and Dinah Washington. His solo recordings included Walking in Space, Gula Matari,  Smackwater Jack, You've Got It Bad Girl, Body Heat, Mellow Madness, and I Heard That!! 

In 1975, he founded Qwest Productions, for which he arranged and produced successful albums by Frank Sinatra and others. In 1978, he produced the  soundtrack for The Wiz, the musical adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, which starred Michael Jackson and Diana Ross. In 1982, he produced Jackson's  Thriller, the bestselling album in the history of the music industry. 

Marking Jones's debut as a film producer, 1985's The Color Purple received 11 Oscar nominations that year, including one for Jones's score. Jones, Thomas Newman, and Alan Silvestri are the only composers besides John Williams to have written scores for a  Steven Spielberg-directed theatrical feature film. Additionally, through this picture, Jones is credited with introducing Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey to film audiences around the world.