Paul McCartney remembered the “supremely talented” Quincy Jones in a tribute to the late musician and producer shared on Instagram.
“Dear Quincy Jones has passed and left those of us who knew him feeling sad,” McCartney wrote. “He was supremely talented, and I felt privileged to have known him for many years.”
As McCartney noted, his connection to Jones began with Beatles producer, George Martin, who’d met and befriended Jones in the early Sixties. Decades later, McCartney would work with Jones and Michael Jackson on Thriller, appearing on the duet, “The Girl Is Mine.”
McCartney remembered Jones “always had a twinkle in his eye and had a very positive, loving spirit which infected everyone who knew him.” He noted Jones’ “legendary” work with Jackson, as well as all the “other strings to his musical bow.”
He continued: “His long career stretches back to the early days when he was a trumpet player, then a band leader, then a producer of many great records. But it is as a friend I would like to remember him. We always had fun in his presence and his legend will continue through the years, but it is those private moments we were lucky enough to have with the great man that I will always remember fondly. We send our love and sympathies to his family and all his many friends.”
McCartney’s warm tribute to Jones shows there was never any animosity between the two, even after Jones made some shocking and insulting remarks about the Beatles and McCartney — “Paul was the worst bass player I ever heard” — in an infamous 2018 interview with Vulture. Jones issued a publicly apology at the time, and McCartney, in a separate interview with GQ not long after, revealed that Jones called him personally, and that the two had laughed it off.
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“I love this guy,” McCartney said. “He’s totally out of his tree. But the great thing was, he rang me after this. I’d only heard about it and I’d thought, I’m not sure it’s true. The joke is, I love Quincy, even after this. He’s a crazy motherfucker… [Jones said] ‘Paul, I didn’t really say that thing — I don’t know what happened, man. I never said that. You know I love you guys!’ I said, ‘If you had said that, you know what I would have said? Fuck you, Quincy Jones!’”
Along with McCartney, tributes to Jones have poured in from artists like the Weeknd, Ice-T, Michael McDonald, Will Smith, Flea, Victoria Monét, and LL Cool J.
