More than a singular talent, Quincy Jones shifted and shaped the very culture he was a part of.
Born on the South Side of Chicago on March 14, 1933, he had a rough childhood. He lost his mother to a mental institution, and lived alongside his younger brother Lloyd with an aunt who had been enslaved in Louisville, until the father moved the siblings to be with him in Seattle.
Because his stepmother did not accept him and his brother, they were often hungry. Looking for food at a recreation center, he touched a piano and decided music would be his life and threw himself into the band, learning to play various instruments, including the trumpet.