Quincy Jones Jr. is an American music impresario, conductor, record producer, musical arranger, film composer and trumpeter. During five decades in the entertainment industry, Jones has earned 79 Grammy Award nominations, 27 Grammys, and a Grammy Legend Award in 1991. He is best known as the producer of two of the top-selling records of all time: the album Thriller, by pop icon Michael Jackson, which sold 104 million copies worldwide, and the charity song “We Are the World.”
In 1968, Jones and his songwriting partner Bob Russell became the first African-Americans to be nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Original Song category. That same year, he became the first African-American to be nominated twice within the same year when he was nominated for Best Original Score for his work on the music of In Cold Blood. Jones was also the first (and so far, the only) African-American to be nominated as a producer in the category of Best Picture (in 1986, for The Color Purple). He was also the first African-American to win the Academy’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, in 1995. He is tied with sound designer Willie D. Burton as the most Oscar-nominated African-American, each of them having seven nominations.
His resume also includes an extensive list of social and philanthropic causes. Through his Project Q foundation, a joint initiative with the Harvard School of Public Health, Jones is actively working with NGOs such as UNICEF, the Clinton Hunter Development Initiative and the Inter-American Development Bank, among others, to improve the health and well being of millions of children in developing countries such as Rwanda, South Africa and Asia. TWI is proud to have a visionary of Quincy’s international stature and relationships as part of its team.