Quincy Jones in the context of "Beat It"

The Color Purple is a 1985 American epic period drama film, directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Menno Meyjes, based on the 1982 novel by Alice Walker. Spielberg's eighth film as a director, it marked a turning point in his career as it was a departure from the summer blockbusters for which he had become known. It is the first film directed by Spielberg for which John Williams did not compose the score, which was done by Quincy Jones instead. Jones also produced the film alongside Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall. The film stars Whoopi Goldberg in her breakthrough role, along with Danny Glover, Oprah Winfrey (in her film debut), Margaret Avery, and Adolph Caesar.

Filmed in Anson and Union counties in North Carolina, The Color Purple tells the coming-of-age story of a young African-American girl named Celie Harris and the brutal experiences she endured including domestic violence, incest, child sexual abuse, poverty, racism, and sexism.

The 68th Academy Awards ceremony, organized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 1995 in the United States and took place on March 25, 1996, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles beginning at 6:00 p.m. PST / 9:00 p.m. EST. During the ceremony, AMPAS presented Academy Awards (commonly referred to as Oscars) in 24 categories. The ceremony, televised in the United States by ABC, was produced by David Salzman and Quincy Jones and directed by Jeff Margolis. Actress Whoopi Goldberg hosted the show for the second time, having previously presided over the 66th ceremony in 1994. Three weeks earlier, in a ceremony held at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, on March 2, the Academy Awards for Technical Achievement were presented by host Richard Dreyfuss.

Braveheart won five awards, including Best Picture. Other winners included Apollo 13, Pocahontas, Restoration, and The Usual Suspects with two awards and Anne Frank Remembered, Antonia's Line, Babe, A Close Shave, Dead Man Walking, Leaving Las Vegas, Lieberman in Love, Mighty Aphrodite, One Survivor Remembers, Il Postino: The Postman, and Sense and Sensibility with one. The telecast garnered almost 45 million viewers in the United States.

Fantasia 2000 is a 1999 American animated musical anthology film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation. It is the sequel to Fantasia (1940), and like its predecessor, the film consists of animated segments set to pieces of classical music. Segments are introduced by Steve Martin, Itzhak Perlman, Quincy Jones, Bette Midler, James Earl Jones, Penn & Teller, James Levine, and Angela Lansbury in live action scenes directed by Don Hahn, while the animated sequences are directed by Pixote Hunt, Hendel Butoy, Eric Goldberg, James Algar, Francis Glebas and Paul and Gaëtan Brizzi.

After numerous unsuccessful attempts to develop a Fantasia sequel, The Walt Disney Company revived the idea shortly after Michael Eisner became chief executive officer in 1984. Development paused until the commercial success of the 1991 home video release of Fantasia convinced Eisner that there was enough public interest and funds for a sequel, to which he assigned Disney as executive producer. The music for six of the film's eight segments is performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by James Levine. The film includes The Sorcerer's Apprentice from the 1940 original. Each new segment was produced by combining traditional animation with computer-generated imagery. Fantasia 2000 is part of the Disney Renaissance, and also commemorates Walt Disney's third animated feature film.

The Anderson Tapes is a 1971 American crime film directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Sean Connery and featuring Dyan Cannon, Martin Balsam, Ralph Meeker, Garrett Morris, Margaret Hamilton, and Alan King. The screenplay by Frank Pierson was based on the 1970 epistolary novel of the same name by Lawrence Sanders, which consists primarily of transcripts of tape recordings. The film is scored by Quincy Jones and marks the feature film debut of Christopher Walken.

It was the first major film to focus on the pervasiveness of electronic surveillance, from security cameras in public places to hidden recording devices.

Juliette Nadia Boulanger (French: [ʒyljɛt nadja bulɑ̃ʒe] ; 16 September 1887 – 22 October 1979) was a French music teacher, conductor and composer. She taught many of the leading composers and musicians of the 20th century, and also performed occasionally as a pianist and organist.

From a musical family, she achieved early honours as a student at the Conservatoire de Paris but, believing that she had no particular talent as a composer, she gave up writing music and became a teacher. In that capacity, she influenced generations of young composers, especially those from the United States and other English-speaking countries. Among her students were many important composers, soloists, arrangers, and conductors, including Grażyna Bacewicz, Daniel Barenboim, Lennox Berkeley, İdil Biret, Elliott Carter, Aaron Copland, David Diamond, John Eliot Gardiner, Philip Glass, Roy Harris, Quincy Jones, Gilbert Levine, Dinu Lipatti, Igor Markevitch, Julia Perry, Astor Piazzolla, Laurence Rosenthal, and over 250 others.

Jean-Baptiste Frédéric Isidor, Baron Thielemans (29 April 1922 – 22 August 2016), known professionally as Toots Thielemans ([tuts tiləmans]), was a Belgian jazz musician. He was mostly known for playing the chromatic harmonica, as well as his guitar and whistling skills, and composing. According to jazz historian Ted Gioia, his most important contribution was in "championing the humble harmonica", which Thielemans made into a "legitimate voice in jazz". He eventually became the "preeminent" jazz harmonica player.

His first professional performances were with Benny Goodman's band when they toured Europe in 1949 and 1950. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1951, becoming a citizen in 1957. From 1953 to 1959 he played with George Shearing, and then led his own groups on tours in the U.S. and Europe. In 1961 he recorded and performed live one of his own compositions, "Bluesette", which featured him playing guitar and whistling. In the 1970s and 1980s, he continued touring and recording, appearing with musicians such as Oscar Peterson, Elis Regina, Caetano Veloso, Ella Fitzgerald, Ivan Lins, Sarah Vaughan, Bill Evans, Dizzy Gillespie, Kenny Werner, Pat Metheny, Jaco Pastorius, Mina Mazzini, Elis Regina, Quincy Jones, George Shearing, Natalie Cole, Billy Joel, Paul Simon, and Paquito D'Rivera.

Lionel Leo Hampton (April 20, 1908 – August 31, 2002) was an American jazz vibraphonist, percussionist, and bandleader. He worked with jazz musicians from Teddy Wilson, Benny Goodman, and Buddy Rich, to Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, and Quincy Jones. In 1992, he was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, and he was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1996.

Hampton was a member of the executive committee of the Writers and Artists for Peace in the Middle East, a pro-Israel group. In 1984, he signed a letter protesting German arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

American singer-songwriter Michael Jackson recorded songs for ten studio albums, two posthumous studio albums, seventy-two compilation albums, three soundtrack albums, one live album and seven remix albums. He has provided background vocals for songs recorded by other artists, as well as featured on duets.

Jackson debuted on the professional music scene at age five as a member of the Jackson 5. The group set a chart record when its first four singles—"I Want You Back" (1969), "ABC" (1970), "The Love You Save" (1970), and "I'll Be There" (1970)—peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. As Jackson began to emerge as a solo performer in the early 1970s, he maintained ties to the Jackson 5 and Motown. Between 1972 and 1975, Michael released four solo studio albums with Motown: Got to Be There (1972), Ben (1972), Music & Me (1973), and Forever, Michael (1975). "Got to Be There" and "Ben", the title tracks from his first two solo albums, became successful singles, as did a cover of Bobby Day's "Rockin' Robin". In June 1975, the Jackson 5 signed with Epic Records, a subsidiary of CBS Records, and released six more albums between 1976 and 1984. Michael, the group's lead songwriter during this time, wrote hits such as "Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)" (1979), "This Place Hotel" (1980), and "Can You Feel It" (1980). Jackson's fifth solo album, Off the Wall (1979), co-produced by Jackson and Quincy Jones. Songwriters for the album included Jackson, Rod Temperton, Stevie Wonder, and Paul McCartney. Off the Wall was the first solo album to generate four top 10 hits in the United States: "Off the Wall", "She's Out of My Life", and the chart-topping singles "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" and "Rock with You". This album helped Jackson win three awards at the American Music Awards and a Grammy Award for his solo efforts. Jackson recorded with Queen singer Freddie Mercury from 1981 to 1983, including a demo of "State of Shock", "Victory", and "There Must Be More to Life Than This". Jackson went on to record the single "State of Shock" with Mick Jagger for the Jacksons' album Victory (1984). In 1982, Jackson combined his interests in songwriting and film when he contributed the song "Someone in the Dark" to the storybook for the film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. The song, with Jones as its producer, won a Grammy for Best Recording for Children in 1983.

"Smooth Criminal" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Michael Jackson, released on November 14, 1988, as the seventh single from his seventh studio album, Bad (1987). It was written by Jackson and produced by Jackson and Quincy Jones. The lyrics describe a woman who has been attacked in her apartment and the search for the attacker, who is "smooth" because he leaves no evidence as to his identity.

The music video for "Smooth Criminal", which premiered internationally on MTV on October 13, 1988, is the centerpiece of the 1988 film Moonwalker. The 1930s setting and Jackson's white suit and fedora pay tribute to the Fred Astaire musical comedy film The Band Wagon. In the video, Jackson and the dancers perform an apparently physically impossible "anti-gravity lean".