Quincy Jones Trivia
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59 free Quincy Jones trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Quincy Jones trivia quiz covers seven decades of the producer's life, from a Chicago childhood and Seattle trumpet gigs with a teenage Ray Charles to Thriller, We Are the World and a posthumous honorary Oscar. The easy questions cover the three Michael Jackson albums, the charity single, Austin Powers, The Fresh Prince and his Grammy count. Medium questions dig into Lesley Gore, Mercury Records, Sinatra's ring, The Pawnbroker, Roots, The Dude and Back on the Block. The hard and expert questions are for people who have read the autobiography: Nadia Boulanger, Garfield High, The Jones Boys, the Elvis TV band, the Dismas House benefit, his Tikar ancestry, Playground Sessions and Hillside Memorial Park. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries its citation, so the dates, titles and names can be trusted. Difficulty is shown on every question, which makes it easy to build a round for a music quiz night or play the whole set. When you finish, try our Michael Jackson and other music-legend quizzes.
30 of 59 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which city was Quincy Jones born in 1933?
Chicago
Chicago's South Side was home until 1943, when his father took a wartime job at a navy shipyard on Puget Sound and moved the family west.
Q 02Which three Michael Jackson albums did Quincy Jones produce?
Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad
Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad. For Dangerous in 1991 Jackson moved on, co-producing the album himself with Teddy Riley, who said following Jones was really difficult.
Q 03Jones and Michael Jackson first worked together on which 1978 musical film?
The Wiz
The Wiz cast Jackson as the Scarecrow, and working together on its soundtrack led straight to Jones producing the singer's next solo album, which sold some 20 million copies.
Q 04Which rock guitarist did Quincy Jones phone to play the solo on Michael Jackson's "Beat It"?
Eddie Van Halen
Eddie Van Halen took the call for a crank and swore at Jones before realising who it was, then recorded the solo for free as a favour.
Q 05Which hip-hop and R&B magazine did Quincy Jones launch in 1993?
Vibe
Vibe was his bid to give the hip-hop generation what Rolling Stone gave rock, and a 1998 Vibe article on street racers became the basis for The Fast and the Furious.
Q 06What sign did Jones tape to the studio entrance for the "We Are the World" session?
Check Your Ego at the Door
"Check Your Ego at the Door" met more than 40 of pop's biggest names as they arrived, because Jones had just one night to get them all onto a single record.
Q 07Who wrote "We Are the World"?
Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie
Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie. Stevie Wonder was first lined up as Richie's co-writer, but he was tied up with his own recording, so Jackson took his place.
Q 08Which activist-entertainer's idea for an American Band Aid led to 'We Are the World'?
Harry Belafonte
Harry Belafonte phoned the manager Ken Kragen just before Christmas 1984 wanting a benefit concert, and the plan turned into a record instead.
Q 09Whose 1963 hit "It's My Party" gave Jones his first No. 1 record as a producer?
Lesley Gore
Lesley Gore was 16 when Jones signed her from a demo tape, and he rushed copies of the single to radio stations to beat a rival version Phil Spector was preparing.
Q 10Which record label promoted Jones from music director to vice-president in the 1960s?
Mercury
Mercury. Its boss Irving Green had rescued him with a personal loan after his touring big band went broke, and the promotion made him one of the first Black executives at a major label.
Q 11Which bandleader's orchestra took the 20-year-old Jones on a European tour in 1953?
Lionel Hampton
Lionel Hampton had first hired him at 15, only for Hampton's wife and manager, Gladys, to send the boy off the band bus and back to school.
Q 12Jones moved to which city in 1957 to study with Nadia Boulanger, the teacher of Aaron Copland?
Paris
Paris gave him what New York would not: he said Black arrangers there were kept to horns and rhythm, while his job at the Barclay label let him write for strings.
Q 13Jones was in the TV studio band when which singer made his national television debut in 1956?
Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley's television debut was not on Ed Sullivan: he first sang on the Dorsey brothers' Stage Show in January 1956, months earlier, with Jones in the band.
Q 21For which 1977 miniseries did Jones win his Primetime Emmy for music composition?
Roots
Roots. Its author Alex Haley was a close friend, and after they worked on the series Haley had genealogists trace Jones's own family tree.
Q 22Jones insisted that which untried newcomer be cast in the 1985 drama he produced, earning her an Oscar nomination?
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey was a local talk-show host who had never acted; her performance as Sofia earned an Oscar nomination months before her own show went national in 1986.
Q 23Which director broke with his usual composer, John Williams, to let Quincy Jones score his 1985 drama?
Steven Spielberg
Q 14Which rapper attacked Jones in print over his marriages, then fell in love with his daughter Kidada?
Tupac Shakur
Tupac Shakur apologised after Kidada's sister answered him with a furious open letter, and he and Kidada were a couple when he was shot in Las Vegas in 1996.
Q 15Which rock star later attended Garfield High, the school where Quincy Jones studied?
Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix left Garfield without graduating; it was Jones the school honoured in 2008, naming its new performing arts centre after him.
Q 16Jones's swinging 1964 arrangement for Frank Sinatra and Count Basie made a signature hit of which song?
Fly Me to the Moon
Fly Me to the Moon became so tied to the space programme that Buzz Aldrin is said to have played this recording once Apollo 11 reached the Moon.
Q 17What did Frank Sinatra leave Jones when he died in 1998?
His ring
His ring. Sinatra had worn the gold ring with his family crest from Sicily for 40 years, and Jones joked that in Sicily he needed no passport: he just flashed the ring.
Q 18Which Sidney Lumet drama about a Holocaust survivor in Harlem was the first American film Jones scored?
The Pawnbroker
The Pawnbroker came at Sidney Lumet's invitation when Hollywood rarely hired Black composers, and its success led Jones to quit his record-company job and move to Los Angeles.
Q 19Jones composed "The Streetbeater", the funky theme tune of which 1970s sitcom?
Sanford and Son
Sanford and Son starred his old friend Redd Foxx, and the wordless theme lasted so well that Rolling Stone readers voted it among the ten best TV themes in 2011.
Q 20Jones's 1962 tune "Soul Bossa Nova" was later used as the theme for which 1997 comedy?
Austin Powers
Austin Powers gave the 1962 tune a second life, and a year later it was also a theme of the football World Cup in France.
Steven Spielberg. Jones, his co-producer on the film, wrote the score in under two months, and Williams did not miss another Spielberg feature until Bridge of Spies in 2015.
Q 24Jones's 1981 album The Dude yielded "Just Once" and "One Hundred Ways", both sung by whom?
James Ingram
James Ingram was a demo singer paid $50 a song when Jones heard his demo of "Just Once" and put him on the album; "One Hundred Ways" then won him his first Grammy.
Q 25Which Jones album, pairing veterans like Ella Fitzgerald with rappers like Ice-T, won the 1991 Grammy for Album of the Year?
Back on the Block
Back on the Block was his comeback after a breakdown that sent him to recover in Tahiti, and its mix of bebop elders and rappers won him six Grammys in one night.
Q 26Which sitcom did Quincy Jones produce after its untested star auditioned at a party in his home?
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Lawyers drew up the first contract that night in a limousine outside, and the show's rich cousins were partly modelled on Jones's own children.
Q 27Which sketch show did Jones produce for Fox from 1995 to 2009?
Mad TV
Mad TV began when Jones and his partner David Salzman bought the rights to Mad magazine, and the sketch show they built on the name ran for 14 seasons.
Q 28Jones persuaded which trumpeter to revisit his 1950s Gil Evans material at Montreux in 1991?
Miles Davis
Miles Davis had refused for years to revisit his past, then played the old scores while seriously ill; it became the last album he recorded, three months before he died.
Q 29Which late-night show did Jones host in February 1990, bringing along ten musical guests?
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live had him conduct its band through Dizzy Gillespie's "Manteca", which he dedicated to Nelson Mandela, who walked free from prison the next day.
Q 30What was the title of Jones's 2001 autobiography?
Q
Q. The audiobook won the 2002 Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album, and in the memoir he admitted that at one point he was dating five women at the same time.