Quincy Jones

Quincy Delight Jones Jr. was honored as an SCL Lifetime Achievement recipient at the annual LA Holiday Dinner on December 15, 2015.

Trumpeter, arranger, composer, bandleader, producer, tastemaker, mogul – is there anything Quincy Jones hasn’t done?

Among the most significant figures in 20th-century American popular music, Jones parlayed a career as a jazz arranger, bandleader and record-label executive in the early 1960s into an even more impactful one, as the first African-American composer to score multiple Hollywood films in the 1960s and ’70s.

Oscar nominations for IN COLD BLOOD, THE COLOR PURPLE and others; winning the Academy’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award; an Emmy win for the landmark series ROOTS; and no fewer than 28 Grammys (out of a record 80 nominations) for his own big-band albums as well as producing other artists including Michael Jackson, make him unique in the jazz, pop, soul and film-music arena.

His other films, including THE PAWNBROKER, IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, CACTUS FLOWER and THE GETAWAY, are classics of the big screen, while his TV themes – including IRONSIDE, the original BILL COSBY SHOW and SANFORD AND SON – are memorable for their freshness and originality. He is a Grammy Legend, has received a Kennedy Center Honor, and the National Medal of Arts, and remains active in the worlds of film, TV, records and publishing.

An Advisory Board member since the SCL’s inception, Quincy was an active voice in the transition from CLGA to SCL.