Warner Chappell Music has entered into a global publishing agreement with the legendary Quincy Jones.
The administration deal covers Jones’s songwriting catalog, as well as all current and future material.
The pact, which encompasses over 2,000 compositions, also includes work by several songwriters under the umbrella of Jones’s company, including the Brothers Johnson, Siedah Garrett, and others.
In a career spanning seven decades, Jones has worked as a composer, record producer, artist, arranger, conductor, instrumentalist, label executive, film & TV producer, magazine founder, multi-media entrepreneur, and humanitarian.
Jones has earned a record 80 Grammy Award nominations, including 28 wins across an array of categories: jazz, R&B, pop, rap, spoken word, children’s, cast album, instrumental arrangement, music film, and music video, not to mention Record of the Year, Album of the Year, and Producer of the Year.
His seminal work in the ‘50s and ‘60s saw him work with greats such as Lionel Hampton, Sarah Vaughan, Ray Charles, Count Basie (with whom Jones won his first Grammy in 1963), Duke Ellington, Dinah Washington, Cannonball Adderley, LaVern Baker, Leslie Gore, and Frank Sinatra.
Jones’s career also saw him collaborate with the likes of Michael Jackson, producing and conducting the charity single, We Are the World.
As the first black composer embraced by the Hollywood establishment in the ‘60s, and starting with Sidney Lumet’s The Pawnbroker in 1964, he has gone on to score nearly 40 major motion pictures, including The Deadly Affair, In Cold Blood, In the Heat of the Night, The Italian Job, The Out-of-Towners, The Anderson Tapes, and The Getaway.
In 1968, he made history as the first African American to be nominated for two Academy Awards in the same year.
In 1985, Quincy Jones co-produced and wrote the music for Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, which garnered 11 Oscar nominations.
Alongside his work composing and producing for other artists, Jones has released a series of recordings of his own, including 1962’s Soul Bossa Nova, which has been featured in multiple film and TV projects, from The Pawnbroker to the Austin Powers series theme song to Glee.
His 1989 album, Back on the Block – which won the Album of the Year Grammy – brought such legends as Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, and Miles Davis together with Ice T, Big Daddy Kane, and Melle Mel to create the first fusion of bebop and hip-hop.
His 1995 recording, Q’s Jook Joint, garnered seven Grammy nominations and featured artists including Bono, Ray Charles, Phil Collins, Gloria Estefan, Herbie Hancock, Heavy D., Chaka Khan, Queen Latifah, Tone Loc, Shaquille O’Neal, Joshua Redman, the Broadway musical troupe Stomp, Barry White, Nancy Wilson, and Stevie Wonder, among others.
In 2010, Jones released Soul Bossa Nostra, featuring Usher, Ludacris, Akon, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Hudson, Mary J. Blige, T-Pain, Robin Thicke, LL Cool J, John Legend, Snoop Dogg, Wyclef Jean, Q-Tip, Talib Kweli, Bebe Winans, and more.
Among his many accomplishments, when Jones was named Vice President of Mercury Records in 1961, he became the first high-level black executive of an established major record company.
In 1980, he founded his own Qwest Records, a joint venture with Warner Records that boasted such artists as New Order, Tevin Campbell, Andre Crouch, Patti Austin, James Ingram, Siedah Garrett, Gregory Jefferson, and Justin Warfield.
The label also released a series of soundtracks, including Boyz n the Hood, Sarafina!, and Malcolm X.
In 1990, Jones’s life and career were chronicled in the Warner Bros. film, Listen Up: The Lives of Quincy Jones. In 2001, he added Best-Selling Author to his list of accomplishments with the publication of Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones.
The audio recording of the book earned Jones his 27th Grammy Award, in the Best Spoken Word category. In conjunction with the autobiography, Rhino Records released a boxed set of Quincy’s music, entitled Q: The Musical Biography of Quincy Jones.
In 2008, The Complete Quincy Jones: My Journey & Passions, examined the virtuosity of the man Frank Sinatra named Q, with a foreword by Clint Eastwood, preface from Bono, an introduction by Maya Angelou, and an afterword by Sidney Poitier.
2010’s Q on Producing: The Soul and Science of Mastering Music and Work recounted his six-decade long career working in the recording studio with countless musical icons. In 2018, Jones won his 28th Grammy Award for the Netflix documentary, Quincy.
In 1991, he founded VIBE magazine, devoted to R&B and hip-hop music and culture. That same year, he helped launch NBC-TV’s hit series, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, for which he served as an executive producer.
In 1994, he formed Qwest Broadcasting, one of the largest minority-owned broadcasting companies in the US. Recently, he produced the award-winning 2014 documentary, Keep On Keepin’ On, the story of jazz legend Clark Terry.
“We are thrilled that he has chosen to return to Warner Chappell, and it’s an honor to represent the work of a true master.”
Jones is the recipient of innumerable awards and accolades. In 2016, when he received a Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical for the Broadway production of The Color Purple, it made him a rare EGOT winner – the exclusive club of artists who have received Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Awards.
The all-time most-nominated Grammy artist, he’s also a recipient of the Recording Academy’s prestigious Trustees Award and the Grammy Legend Award.
In 1990, France recognized Jones with its most distinguished title, the Commandeur de la Légion d’honneur.
He was awarded with the Royal Swedish Academy of Music’s coveted Polar Music Prize and the Republic of Italy’s Rudolph Valentino Award.
In 2001, Jones was named a Kennedy Center Honoree, for his contributions to the cultural fabric of the United States of America.
In 2010, he was bestowed with the National Medal of Arts, the country’s highest artistic honor. And in 2013, at the age of 80, Quincy was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame by Oprah Winfrey, who presented him with the Ahmet Ertegun Award.
“Quincy started his journey in the publishing business with Warner Chappell and built our incredible catalog during those crucial years, so it seems right that we have returned to where it all began.”
Nancie Stern, Quincy Jones Music Publishing
Warner Chappell Music Co-Chair & CEO Guy Moot and Co-Chair & COO Carianne Marshall, said: “A creative genius and a cultural icon, there is no figure in modern music who has accomplished so much across so many generations; who has broken so many musical and social barriers; and whose impact has been so wide-ranging as that of Quincy Jones.
“As a composer, Quincy has embraced and blended nearly every genre to create a unique, incredibly rich and diverse body of work.
“Whether it’s driving people onto the dancefloor or propelling the narrative of a film, Quincy’s music transcends race, style, and age.
“We are thrilled that he has chosen to return to Warner Chappell, and it’s an honor to represent the work of a true master.”
Nancie Stern, Vice President of Quincy Jones Music Publishing, added: “We are so excited to be working with Warner Chappell again.
“They have an exceptional creative and administrative team, and I know we will have a long and successful relationship working together.
“Quincy started his journey in the publishing business with Warner Chappell and built our incredible catalog during those crucial years, so it seems right that we have returned to where it all began.”Music Business Worldwide
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