Independent Research entry(Quincy Jones)

For my final blog entry and independent research I will be touching on the influence of the producer and composer Quincy Jones. His career spans five decades with a record 27 Grammys and 79 Grammy award nominations, which also includes a Grammy Legend Award in 1991. He is most famously recognized as the producer of the album Thriller by pop icon Michael Jackson. This album went on to sell more than 110 million copies worldwide. Quincy Jones also went on to produce and conduct the charity song We Are The World. Quincy Jones and Bob Russell were the first African American to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song titled The Eyes of Love from Universal Pictures film Banning. He is tied with sound designer Willie D.Burton as the most Oscar-nominated African American, with each of them having seven nominations.

I feel as though Quincy Jones made a very significant impact on the career of popular music world icon Michael Jackson. While working on the film The Wiz, Michael Jackson and Quincy descused working a project together, in result they went on to make Off The Wall which sold approximately 20 million copies, making Quincy the most powerful record producer in the industry. Their next collaboration Thriller sold 110 million copies and has become the highest selling album of all time. From there they worked on the album Bad, which sold 32 million copies. After this Jackson went on to different producers to help update and reinvent his sound.

Quincy also played a major role in social activism which began in the 1960’s with his support of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Quincy is on the founders of the Institute for Black American Music (IBAM), whose events are aimed at raising funds for the creation of a national library of African American art and music. He is also a founder of the Black Arts Festival in Chicago, Illinois. Working with Bono of U2, for many years they teamed up on many philanthropic missions and operations. In 2004, Quincy launched the We Are The Future project, which gives children in poor and violence filled cities a chance to live out their child-hoods and create an atmosphere of hope and prosperity.

My impression of Quincy Jones is defiantly a great one. I admire him and am extremely impressed by is hard work, dedication, and legacy that he has left behind for himself alone. Being behind the scenes and also at times in the limelight of things he has made a huge mark and impact on society and the direction of where music has gone today. Quincy Jones single handily help to build the foundation for what popular music is today and everything that he has touched seems to spark and manifest into something worth being called greatness.