Copy link Copied Copy link Copied Subscribe to gift this article Gift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe. Already a subscriber? Login Quincy Jones, who died at 91 last Sunday, was a colossus of American music, leaving a profound influence on nearly every genre he touched, from the 1950s on – jazz, funk, soundtracks, syrupy R & B and chart-topping pop. The scope of his career is so vast, it seems almost impossible that it’s the work of a single person.

He cut his teeth as a trumpeter in Lionel Hampton’s touring band in the early ’50s, then studied in Paris under the great classical pedagogue Nadia Boulanger. He produced jazz albums for Mercury Records, made fast friends with Frank Sinatra — who called him “Q”, a nickname that stuck – and recorded It’s My Party , a No. 1 hit by a teenage Lesley Gore.

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