Jones with Abby Cadabby
Quincy Jones (1933-2024) was a jazz musician who gained his greatest fame as a composer, songwriter, and music producer. For Sesame Street, Jones scored the John and Faith Hubley insert "Catch the Kitty,"[1] debuting in Episode 0187. Jones scored the Hubleys' independent films Of Men and Demons (1969) and Dig (1972).
Years later, Jones' cameo in the music video "Yakety Yak - Take It Back" aired on Sesame Street.
In 2017, Jones was photographed with Abby Cadabby at the Smithsonian Magazine's American Ingenuity Awards.[2]
Jones began as a jazz trumpeter and toured with bandleader Lionel Hampton as musician and arranger. By the 1950s, he was headlining his own albums, such as This Is How I Feel About Jazz (1957), and subsequently arranged and conducted albums for Peggy Lee and Frank Sinatra. He became a producer for record label Mercury, working with Lesley Gore, Dizzy Gillespie, and Sarah Vaughan, as well as his own albums. For other labels, he produced releases by B.B. King, Little Richard, Aretha Franklin, Lena Horne, Diana Ross, and others. He was Michael Jackson's record producer from 1978 to 1987 (including Thriller and Bad).
Touring and recording in Sweden, Jones' first film score was for the 1961 Swedish feature Pojken i trädet (The Boy in the Tree, with Björn Gustafson). He followed with scores for several Sidney Lumet films (including The Pawnbroker and The Anderson Tapes), The Italian Job, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, In the Heat of the Night, and The Out-of-Towners. He composed for the TV series Ironside, The Bill Cosby Show, and Roots. He moved into film and television producing, beginning with The Color Purple (which he also scored) and including the TV series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and appeared as himself in Austin Powers in Goldmember and Fantasia 2000.
His daughter is actress Rashida Jones.
Sources[]
- ↑ University of Maryland. CTW Archives. Music logs for Episode 0366.
- ↑ @lollylardpop on Instagram, November 30, 2017