By HILLEL ITALIE Quincy Jones, the multitalented music titan whose vast legacy ranged from producing Michael Jackson’s historic “Thriller” album to writing prize-winning film and television scores and collaborating with Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles and hundreds of other recording artists, has died at 91. Jones’ publicist, Arnold Robinson, says he died Sunday night at his home in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles, surrounded by his family. Jones was to have received an honorary Academy Award later this month. “Tonight, with full but broken hearts, we must share the news of our father and brother Quincy Jones’ passing,” the family said in a statement. “And although this is an incredible loss for our family, we celebrate the great life that he lived and know there will never be another like him.” Jones rose from running with gangs on the South Side of Chicago to the very heights of show business, becoming one of the first Black executives to thrive in Hollywood and amassing an extraordinary musical catalog that includes some of the richest moments of American rhythm and song. For years, it was unlikely to find a music lover who did not own at least one record with his name on it, or a leader in the entertainment industry and beyond who did not have some connection to him. Jones kept company with presidents and foreign leaders, movie stars and musicians, philanthropists and business leaders. He toured with Count Basie and Lionel Hampton, arranged records for Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, composed the soundtracks for “Roots” and “In the Heat of the Night,” organized President Bill Clinton’s first inaugural celebration and oversaw the all-star recording of “We Are the World,” the 1985 charity record for famine relief in Africa. Lionel Richie, who co-wrote “We Are the World” and was among the featured singers, would call Jones “the master orchestrator.” In a career which began when records were still played on platters turning at 78 rpm, top honors likely go to his productions with Jackson: “Off the Wall,” “Thriller” and “Bad” were albums near-universal in their style and appeal. Jones’ versatility and imagination helped set off the explosive talents of Jackson as he transformed from child star to the “King of Pop.” On such classic tracks as “Billie Jean” and “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough,” Jones and Jackson fashioned a global soundscape out of disco, funk, rock, pop, R&B and jazz and African chants. For “Thriller,” some of the most memorable touches originated with Jones, who recruited Eddie Van Halen for a guitar solo on the genre-fusing “Beat It” and brought in Vincent Price for a ghoulish voiceover on the title track. “Thriller” sold more than 20 million copies in 1983 alone and has contended with the Eagles’ “Greatest Hits 1971-1975” among others as the best-selling album of all time. “If an album doesn’t do well, everyone says ‘it was the producers fault’; so if it does well, it should be your ‘fault,’ too,” Jones said in an interview with the Library of Congress in 2016. “The tracks don’t just all of a sudden appear. The producer has to have the skill, experience and ability to guide the vision to completion.” WEST HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA – FEBRUARY 22: Rashida Jones and Quincy Jones attend Common’s 5th Annual Toast to the Arts at Ysabel on February 22, 2019 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo by Arnold Turner/Getty Images for Freedom Road Productions) LOS ANGELES, CA – OCTOBER 02: Honoree Quincy Jones and music producer Jimmy Iovine attend Montblanc Honors Quincy Jones at the Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award Ceremony held at Chateau Marmont on October 2, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images For Montblanc) WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA – FEBRUARY 24: (L-R) Diana Ross, Quincy Jones, and Mary Wilson attend the 27th annual Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Awards Viewing Party sponsored by IMDb and Neuro Drinks celebrating EJAF and the 91st Academy Awards on February 24, 2019 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for EJAF) HOLLYWOOD, CA – NOVEMBER 27: Quincy Jones attends Quincy Jones’ Hand And Footprint ceremony at The TCL Chinese Theatre IMAX on November 27, 2018 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images) LOS ANGELES, CA – NOVEMBER 16: Quincy Jones attends Spotify’s Secret Genius Awards hosted by NE-YO at The Theatre at Ace Hotel on November 16, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Spotify) WEST HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA – JANUARY 06: Quincy Jones and Pharrell Williams attend the The Black Godfather AMPAS Screening, Q&A + Reception at San Vicente Bungalows on January 06, 2020 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Netflix) WEST HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA – FEBRUARY 22: Cicely Tyson and Quincy Jones attend Common’s 5th Annual Toast to the Arts at Ysabel on February 22, 2019 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo by Arnold Turner/Getty Images for Freedom Road Productions) PHOENIX, ARIZONA – MARCH 22: Quincy Jones and Reba McEntire attend the Celebrity Fight Night’s Founders Club Dinner at JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort & Spa on March 22, 2019 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for Celebrity Fight Night) LOS ANGELES, CA – FEBRUARY 26: Producer Quincy Jones attends the Annie Leibovitz Book Launch presented by Vanity Fair, Leon Max and Benedikt Taschen during Vanity Fair Campaign Hollywood at Chateau Marmont on February 26, 2014 in Los Angeles, California.(Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images) HOLLYWOOD, CA – NOVEMBER 15: Herbie Hancock (L) poses with Quincy Jones recipient Herbie Hancock Humanitarian Award during the Thelonious Monk Institute International Jazz Vocals Competition 2015 at Dolby Theatre on November 15, 2015 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Rachel Murray/Getty Images for Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz) NEW YORK, NY – APRIL 17: (L-R) Tony Bennett, Quincy Jones and Drew Nieporent attend the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival Juror Welcome Lunch on April 17, 2014 in New York City. (Photo by Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images for the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival) WEST HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA – OCTOBER 26: Quincy Jones and Eddie Murphy attend the Dolemite Is My Name! LA AMPAS Hosted Tastemaker at San Vicente Bungalows on October 26, 2019 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo by Arnold Turner/Getty Images for Netflix) HOLLYWOOD, CA – OCTOBER 07: Record Producer Quincy Jones (L) attends a ceremony honoring Music Executive Clarence Avant (R) with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on October 7, 2016 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images) BEVERLY HILLS, CA – FEBRUARY 14: Host Clive Davis (L) and record producer Quincy Jones attend the 2016 Pre-GRAMMY Gala and Salute to Industry Icons honoring Irving Azoff at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on February 14, 2016 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Larry Busacca/Getty Images for NARAS) NEW YORK, NY – APRIL 17: (L-R) Quincy Jones and Ron Howard attend the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival Juror Welcome Lunch on April 17, 2014 in New York City. (Photo by Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images for the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival) LOS ANGELES, CA – FEBRUARY 26: Producer Quincy Jones (L) and photographer Annie Leibovitz attend The Annie Leibovitz SUMO-Size Book Launch presented by Vanity Fair, Leon Max and Benedikt Taschen during Vanity Fair Campaign Hollywood at Chateau Marmont on February 26, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Rachel Murray/Getty Images for Vanity Fair) LOS ANGELES, CA – SEPTEMBER 17: Producer Quincy Jones and actor Chris Tucker attend the after party for the premiere of RADIUS-TWC’s “Keep On Keepin’ On” at Westside Tavern on September 17, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images) BEVERLY HILLS, CA – FEBRUARY 09: Quincy Jones speaks onstage during the Pre-GRAMMY Gala and GRAMMY Salute to Industry Icons Honoring Clarence Avant at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on February 9, 2019 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for The Recording Academy) Show Caption1 of 18WEST HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA – FEBRUARY 22: Rashida Jones and Quincy Jones attend Common’s 5th Annual Toast to the Arts at Ysabel on February 22, 2019 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo by Arnold Turner/Getty Images for Freedom Road Productions) Expand The list of his honors and awards fills 18 pages in his 2001 autobiography “Q,” including 27 Grammys at the time (now 28), an honorary Academy Award (now two) and an Emmy for “Roots.” He also received France’s Legion d’Honneur, the Rudolph Valentino Award from the Republic of Italy and a Kennedy Center tribute for his contributions to American culture. He was the subject of a 1990 documentary, “Listen Up: The Lives of Quincy Jones,” and a 2018 film by daughter Rashida Jones. His memoir made him a best-selling author. Born in Chicago in 1933, Jones would cite the hymns his mother sang around the house as the first music he could remember. But he looked back sadly on his childhood, once telling Oprah Winfrey that “There are two kinds of people: those who have nurturing parents or caretakers, and those who don’t. Nothing’s in between.” Jones’ mother suffered from emotional problems and was eventually institutionalized, a loss that made the world seem “senseless” for Quincy. He spent much of his time in Chicago on the streets, with gangs, stealing and fighting. “They nailed my hand to a fence with a switchblade, man,” he told the AP in 2018, showing a scar from his childhood. Music saved him. As a boy, he learned that a Chicago neighbor owned a piano and he soon played it constantly himself. His father moved to Washington state when Quincy was 10 and his world changed at a neighborhood recreation center. Jones and some friends had broken into the kitchen and helped themselves to lemon meringue pie when Jones noticed a small room nearby with a stage. On the stage was a piano. “I went up there, paused, stared, and then tinkled on it for a moment,” he wrote in his autobiography. “That’s where I began to find peace. I was 11. I knew this was it for me. Forever.” Within a few years he was playing trumpet and befriending a young blind musician named Ray Charles, who became a lifelong friend. He was gifted enough to win a scholarship at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, but dropped out when Hampton invited him to tour with his band. Jones went on to work as a freelance composer, conductor, arranger and producer. As a teen, he backed Billie Holiday. By his mid-20s, he was touring with his own band. “We had the best jazz band on the planet, and yet we were literally starving,” Jones later told Musician magazine. “That’s when I discovered that there was music, and there was the music business. If I were to survive, I would have to learn the difference between the two.” Related Articles National News | Federal Reserve is set to cut rates again while facing a hazy post-election outlook National News | Supreme Court will weigh in on new mostly Black Louisiana congressional district, after election National News | Today in History: November 4, King Tutankhamen’s face unveiled National News | Today in History: November 3, Sputnik 2 carries first animal into space National News | Computer programs monitor students’ every word in the name of safety As a music executive, he overcame racial barriers by becoming a vice president at Mercury Records in the early ’60s. In 1971, he became the first Black musical director for the Academy Awards ceremony. The first movie he produced, “The Color Purple,” received 11 Oscar nominations in 1986. (But, to his great disappointment, no wins). In a partnership with Time Warner, he created Quincy Jones Entertainment, which included the pop-culture magazine Vibe and Qwest Broadcasting. The company was sold for $270 million in 1999. “My philosophy as a businessman has always come from the same roots as my personal credo: take talented people on their own terms and treat them fairly and with respect, no matter who they are or where they come from,” Jones wrote in his autobiography. He was at ease with virtually every form of American music, whether setting Sinatra’s “Fly Me to the Moon” to a punchy, swinging rhythm and wistful flute or opening his production of Charles’ soulful “In the Heat of the Night” with a lusty tenor sax solo. He worked with jazz giants (Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington), rappers (Snoop Dogg, LL Cool J), crooners (Sinatra, Tony Bennett), pop singers (Lesley Gore) and rhythm and blues stars (Chaka Khan, Queen Latifah). On “We are the World” alone, performers included Michael Jackson, Bob Dylan, Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder and Bruce Springsteen. He co-wrote hits for Jackson – “P.Y.T (Pretty Young Thing)” – and Donna Summer – “Love Is in Control (Finger on the Trigger) – and had songs sampled by Tupac Shakur, Kanye West and other rappers. He even composed the theme song for the sitcom “Sanford and Son.” Jones was a facilitator and maker of the stars. He gave Will Smith a key break in the hit TV show “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” which Jones produced, and through “The Color Purple” he introduced Winfrey and Whoopi Goldberg to filmgoers. Starting in the 1960s, he composed more than 35 film scores, including for “The Pawnbroker,” “In the Heat of the Night” and “In Cold Blood.” He called scoring “a multifaceted process, an abstract combination of science and soul.” Jones’ work on the soundtrack for “The Wiz” led to his partnership with Jackson, who starred in the 1978 movie. In an essay published in Time magazine after Jackson’s death, in 2009, Jones remembered that the singer kept slips of paper on him that contained thoughts by famous thinkers. When Jones asked about the origins of one passage, Jackson answered “Socrates,” but pronounced it “SO-crayts.” Jones corrected him, “Michael, it’s SOCK-ra-tees.” “And the look he gave me then, it just prompted me to say, because I’d been impressed by all the things I saw in him during the rehearsal process, ‘I would love to take a shot at producing your album,’” Jones recalled. “And he went back and told the people at Epic Records, and they said, `No way — Quincy’s too jazzy.’ Michael was persistent, and he and his managers went back and said, `Quincy’s producing the album.’ And we proceeded to make ‘Off the Wall.’ Ironically, that was one of the biggest Black-selling albums at the time, and that album saved all the jobs of the people saying I was the wrong guy. That’s the way it works.” Tensions emerged after Jackson’s death. In 2013, Jones sued Jackson’s estate, claiming he was owed millions in royalties and production fees on some of the superstar’s greatest hits. In a 2018 interview with New York magazine, he called Jackson “as Machiavellian as they come” and alleged that he lifted material from others. Jones was hooked on work and play, and at times suffered for it. He nearly died from a brain aneurysm in 1974 and became deeply depressed in the 1980s after “The Color Purple” was snubbed by Academy Awards voters; he never received a competitive Oscar. A father of seven children by five mothers, Jones described himself as a “dog” who had countless lovers around the world. He was married three times, his wives including the actor Peggy Lipton. “To me, loving a woman is one of the most natural, blissful, life-enhancing — and dare I say, religious — acts in the world,” he wrote. Along with Rashida, Jones is survived by daughters Jolie Jones Levine, Rachel Jones, Martina Jones, Kidada Jones and Kenya Kinski-Jones; son Quincy Jones III; brother Richard Jones and sisters Theresa Frank and Margie Jay. He was not an activist in his early years, but changed after attending the 1968 funeral of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and later befriending the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Jones was dedicated to philanthropy, saying “the best and only useful aspect of fame and celebrity is having a platform to help others.” His causes included fighting HIV and AIDS, educating children and providing for the poor around the world. He founded the Quincy Jones Listen Up! Foundation to connect young people with music, culture and technology, and said he was driven throughout his life “by a spirit of adventure and a criminal level of optimism.” “Life is like a dream, the Spanish poet and philosopher Federico Garcia Lorca said,” Jones wrote in his memoir. “Mine’s been in Technicolor, with full Dolby sound through THX amplification before they knew what these systems were.” AP Entertainment writer Andrew Dalton and former AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen contributed to this report from Los Angeles.