Music icon Quincy Jones passes away

Music industry titan Quincy Jones, who produced some of Michael Jackson’s best-known albums and collaborated with legends including Frank Sinatra and Count Basie, has died aged 91.

He was surrounded by family at his home in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Bel Air at the time of his death on Sunday, his publicist Arnold Robinson said in a statement that did not specify a cause.

“Tonight, with full but broken hearts, we must share the news of our father and brother Quincy Jones’ passing,” his family said, according to the statement.

“And although this is an incredible loss for our family, we celebrate the great life that he lived and know there will never be another like him.”

A jazz musician, composer and tastemaker, his studio chops and arranging prowess connected the dots between the 20th century’s constellation of stars.

From Frank Sinatra to Michael Jackson, jazz to hip-hop, Jones tracked the ever-fluctuating pulse of pop over his seven-decade-plus career — most often manipulating the beat himself.

“Through his music and his boundless love, Quincy Jones’s heart will beat for eternity,” his family said.

Born in 1933 on the south side of Chicago, Quincy Delight Jones Jr. discovered a knack for the piano at a recreation center and became teenage buddies with Ray Charles.

Jones briefly studied at the Berklee College of Music in Massachusetts before joining bandleader Lionel Hampton on the road, eventually relocating to New York where he gained attention as an arranger for stars that included Duke Ellington, Dinah Washington, Count Basie and, of course, Charles.

Elvis’ trumpeter

He played second trumpet on Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel,” teaming up with Dizzy Gillespie for several years before moving to Paris in 1957, where he studied under the legendary composer Nadia Boulanger.

Jones later expanded into Hollywood, scoring films and television shows.