But to many in the music industry, his legacy towers even bigger than that.
For Jones, accomplishments that ostensibly seem like career footnotes would make for career-defining moments for anyone else.
Quincy isnt even once in a lifetime.
Quincy Jones at his home in Bel Air, 2015.Lawrence K. Ho/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images
He is once in history.
Jones stint at Mercury Records in the early 1960s was one of his lesser-discussed but enormously consequential feats.
Im surprised people dont talk about it a little more often, Cochrane says.
Were still talking about a period of segregation, this was massive.
He wasnt there to work Black music.
There were things that made people think less that he was a Black executive, it was just Quincy.
To see somebody like Quincy have some level of power was a unique thing.
Benson toldthe Guardianin 2019.
I laughed and said: Go for the throat!
Id seen what hed done with Michael JacksonsOff the Wall.
He said, George, put yourself in my hands.
I know more about you than you do yourself.
I was insulted at first, but calmed down, and things started happening.
He made us big in America.
By 1993, he co-foundedVibemagazine as an answer toRolling Stoneto focus more on Black artists.
Quincys undying love was first and foremost the music.
But, I truly believe him when he would say that his decisions werent motivated by money.
Still, in typical Quincy Jones fashion, his influence shone for decades.
He opened so many doors and provided such a road map for so many people.
Nothing I know would I have learned were it not for Quincy.
I wouldnt have made music.
I wouldnt have been a producer.
I wouldnt have thought I could do film and TV or run a company.
Im not doing anything that I didnt learn from Quincy.
