Widely and wildly talented musician and industry mogul worked with Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra, Will Smith and others
Jones was arguably the most versatile pop cultural figure of the 20th century, perhaps best known for producing the albums Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad for Michael Jackson in the 1980s, which made the singer the biggest pop star of all time. Jones also produced music for Sinatra, Aretha Franklin, Donna Summer and many others.
He was also a successful composer of dozens of film scores, and had numerous chart hits under his own name. Jones was a bandleader in big band jazz, an arranger for jazz stars including Count Basie, and a multi-instrumentalist, most proficiently on trumpet and piano. His TV and film production company, founded in 1990, had major success with the sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and other shows, and he continued to innovate well into his 80s, launching Qwest TV in 2017, an on-demand music TV service. Jones is third only to Beyoncé and Jay-Z for having the most Grammy award nominations of all time – 80 to their 88 each – and is the awards’ third most-garlanded winner, with 28.