Quincy Jones, one of the American popular musical greats renowned as a brilliant creator and composer as well as an entrepreneur, has died at 91. He raised many singers to a different level including Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra, Paul Simon and Aretha Franklin and propelled Oprah Winfrey and Will Smith to fame and fortune.
He was born in Chicago on March 14, 1933 at 8.40pm into grinding poverty during the Depression with his grandmother trapping and cooking rats when food was scarce. His musically gifted, schizophrenic mother was institutionalized when he was 7 and his father was on the payroll of a notorious street gang. He was headed to becoming a gangster when he discovered music in his teens.
He started out as a jazz trumpeter, playing with Ray Charles, later moving to Paris to study composition. He scored films, sharing an Emmy Award for the TV miniseries “Roots,” and produced Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” the top-selling pop release of all time. He produced the all-star charity song “We Are the World” in 1985, a best-selling single that raised $50 million for African famine relief. In the same year he coproduced the film “The Color Purple” and handpicked Winfrey, then a rising Chicago-based talk show host, for her breakout dramatic role.
He had a musical Pisces Sun in his performing 5th house widely conjunct Venus also in Pisces. His creative Neptune was opposition his Venus, conjunct a showbizzy Mars in Virgo; and on the focal point of a yod inconjunct Saturn sextile Mercury. His Scorpio Moon in his 1st house was on one leg of another yod sextile Mars Neptune inconjunct Mercury which destined him to be a communicator and teacher.
Accented Neptune and Mercury thrust him into a glittering musical and trailblazing career. He also had the disruptive Pluto square Uranus of his generation.
1933 with Mars, Neptune and Jupiter in Virgo produced a whole raft of distinguished creative and showbusiness types, including Michael Caine.
Quincy Jones’ 17th and 22nd harmonics are both strong – indicating the considerable effect he had on the culture of the time and in future.
The post Quincy Jones – a musical phenomenon first appeared on Astroinform with Marjorie Orr – Star4cast.
