Quincy Jones has been called many things. Perhaps it’s best to think of Jones as Black Culture’s institutional memory; fitting for a career that spanned more than 70 years. While many are aware of Jones’ musical accomplishments, including his iconic work with Count Basie, Frank Sinatra and of course Michael Jackson, it is perhaps easy to overlook Jones’ contribution to film and television.
Jones’s relationship with Hollywood began with the request from Oscar nominated director Sidney Lumet to provide the score for his film The Pawnbroker (1965). Jones’ work with Lumet coincided with his promotion to the role of Vice-President at Mercury Records and marked the beginning of a prolific period in which Jones composed, arranged and produced film scores and soundtracks for many films.
Among the most notable of those films are several that starred Sidney Poitier including For the Love of Ivy (1968), which co-starred Abbey Lincoln, The Lost Man (1969), They Call Me Mr. Tibbs! (1970), Brother John (1971), and most famously In the Heat of the Night (1967), which was awarded the Oscar for Best Film, and earned an Oscar for Best Actor for Rod Steiger. The film’s theme song featured vocals from Jones’ lifelong friend Ray Charles. In some ways Poitier and Jones’ working relationship anticipates the highly successful long-term partnership between Spike Lee and jazz musician Terence Blanchard.
As the 1970s began, Jones also wrote themes for television series including Ironside, The Bill Cosby Show (“Hikky Burr”) and the “Sanford & Son Theme”. Jones’ most impactful work on the small screen was his composing of the score for the groundbreaking television mini-series Roots, based on the Alex Haley book of the same title. The score earned Jones a Primetime Emmy for Best Music Composition for a Series. The soundtrack to Roots allowed Jones the chance to more fully explore some of the West African musical themes that were heard on earlier albums such as Gula Matari.
Jones’ Hollywood career came full circle in 1978, when he was tapped as musical director for a film adaptation of The Wiz, the Tony Award winning stage adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, that featured an all-Black cast. The film was directed by Sidney Lumet, who had given Jones his first opportunity to score films 17-years earlier. The Wiz also afforded Jones his first opportunity to work closely with Michael Jackson; a year after The Wiz was released, Jones and Jackson began the three-album collaboration that established Jackson as a global superstar.
Jones was functioning more as the “boss” that many have come to know him as when he became involved in the film adaptation of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Color Purple. While Jones was, of course, charged with composing the film’s score, he was also one of the lead producers of The Color Purple. Jones was nominated for two Academy Awards, for Best Original Song (“Miss Celie’s Blues” with Lionel Richie and longtime collaborator Rod Temperton) and Best Original Score. The Color Purple was nominated for eleven Academy Awards and quite famously, did not win a single award. The only major award winner from the film was Whoopi Goldberg, who won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture (Drama).
The fact that The Color Purple was overlooked by the Academy, was perhaps a rallying point for Black Hollywood, that came to a head in 1996 with 68th Academy Awards, which was hosted by Whoopi Goldberg and produced by Quincy Jones. Almost twenty years before #OscarsSoWhite, there was only one Black nominee among the 166 nominees that year. The infamous “Hollywood Blackout” of 1996, led to protest led by Rev. Jesse Jackson, in which Jones was forced to be one of the public targets of.
As had been a hallmark of his career Jones took the heat while affirming the essence of the protest. There’s little doubt that two decades after the Hollywood Blackout and almost sixty years after The Pawnbroker, Hollywood is more hospitable to Black talent — and Quincy Jones was an integral part of that change.
Mark Anthony Neal is the James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of African American Studies and Professor of English and Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies at Duke University. The author of several books including Looking for Leroy: Illegible Black Masculinities and Black Ephemera: The Crisis and Challenge of the Musical Archive, both from NYU Press. His next book Save a Seat for Me: Meditations on Black Masculinity and Fatherhood will be published by Simon & Schuster.
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of Mark Anthony Neal's work on Medium.