( CNN ) -- It 's difficult to overestimate Quincy Jones 's contribution to American music . Over the last 60 years he has excelled as a musician , composer , record producer , arranger , conductor and media company executive . Quincy Jones has won 27 Grammy awards during his extraordinary career . In a career studded with landmarks , Jones produced Michael Jackson 's multi-platinum albums `` Off The Wall , '' `` Bad '' and `` Thriller '' -- the best selling album of all time -- and produced and conducted `` We Are The World , '' one of the biggest-selling singles in history . Quincy Delight Jones Jr. , known to his friends as `` Q , '' was born on March 14 , 1933 , in Chicago . He moved to Seattle as a child and began playing trumpet aged 12 . When he was 14 he befriended a young Ray Charles , who taught him how to arrange music , and Jones was soon playing bebop in nightclubs , backing up the likes of Billie Holiday . In 1951 , Jones won a music scholarship at prestigious Schillinger House , in Boston , but he abandoned his studies to tour with bandleader Lionel Hampton . By the mid-50s , he was arranging and recording for the likes of Sarah Vaughan , Duke Ellington and his old friend Ray Charles . In 1956 he toured with Dizzy Gillespie 's Big Band , recording his first album as a leader in the same year . In 1957 , Jones moved to Paris to study music composition and theory , taking a job with Mercury Records ' French distributor to pay for his studies . After a European tour proved a financial disaster , the president of Mercury offered him a position at the record label and Jones soon became vice-president at the company . In the 60s , Jones worked as a conductor and arranger for Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald . He also began scoring music for films , including `` In the Heat of the Night , '' `` In Cold Blood '' and `` The Pawnbroker , '' which featured his hit `` Soul Bossa Nova , '' later re-used as the theme to the `` Austin Powers '' movies . Jones would go on to score 33 movies during his career and he also composed the themes for TV shows such as `` Ironside , '' `` The Bill Cosby Show '' and `` Roots , '' which earned him an Emmy award . Having made his name as a composer and arranger in the 70s , he moved away from jazz to record a series of hit albums of his own soulful music . See photos of Quincy in Seattle » . Jones 's career was dramatically put on hold in 1974 , when he suffered a severe aneurysm , but it did little to stall his incredible drive . In the 80s , as well as producing three Michael Jackson albums and `` We are the World , '' he co-produced and scored the Steven Spielberg movie `` The Color Purple , '' and formed multi-media company Quincy Jones Entertainment . In his role as CEO he was executive producer of TV series `` The Fresh Prince of Bel Air '' and published `` Vibe '' and `` SPIN '' magazines . His 1989 album `` Back On The Block '' won Album Of The Year at the Grammys and 1993 's `` Miles and Quincy Live At Montreux '' , featuring Jones conducting Miles Davis , earned another Grammy . All in all , Jones has won 27 Grammys , been nominated for seven Academy Awards , and has added to his business interests with Quincy Jones Media Group and Qwest Broadcasting . Perhaps because of his own upbringing in tough neighborhoods in Chicago and Seattle , Jones has long been involved in social activism . He supported Martin Luther King 's Operation Breadbasket , which promoted economic development in the inner cities , and worked on Reverend Jesse Jackson 's People United to Save Humanity project . Jones founded the Listen Up ! Foundation , which has worked on youth projects in Los Angeles and South Africa , and he helped launch the We Are the Future project , which helps children in poor and conflict-ridden areas . He is also one of the founders of the Institute for Black American Music ( IBAM ) , which raises money to establish a national library of African-American art and music . Over the course of his incredible career , Jones somehow found the time to marry three times and father seven children . In 1990 , his life was chronicled in the movie `` Listen Up : The Lives of Quincy Jones '' and in 2001 , Jones published `` Q : The Autobiography of Quincy Jones . '' Watch Quincy Jones on My City_My Life » . Of his own career , which has taken him from being a teenage musician in the clubs of Seattle to a world-famous music mogul , Jones says , `` You have to turn all of your drunken dreams into sober realizations . I think I was blessed with the ability to see things and make them happen before everybody else saw them . ''
Quincy Jones has excelled as a musician , composer and record producer . He produced Martin Luther King 's ` `` Bad '' , `` Bad '' and ` Off the Wall '' albums . He has won seven Grammys and been nominated for 27 Academy Awards . He set up the Listen Up ! Foundation , which works on various youth projects .