Mo Ostin, Music Powerhouse Who Put Artists First, Dies at 95

“To me, the artist is the one that must be within the foreground,” Mr. Ostin mentioned in 1994.

Nonetheless, the business acknowledged the importance of his work. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame in 2003, and the Recording Academy honored him with a President’s Advantage Award in 2014 and a Trustees Award in 2017.

He was born Morris Meyer Ostrofsky on March 27, 1927, in Brooklyn to immigrant dad and mom who had come to the USA from Russia throughout the Communist revolution of 1917. When he was 13, he moved together with his dad and mom and his brother, Gerald, to Los Angeles, the place the household ran a produce market.

He was a music fan from an early age, however his introduction to the music enterprise got here by happenstance. Residing subsequent to his household was the brother of Norman Granz, who owned the jazz label Clef Data and promoted live shows within the Forties and ’50s. Throughout his faculty years on the College of California, Los Angeles, the place he majored in economics, Mr. Ostin wound up serving to Mr. Granz by promoting applications for his live shows. He married Evelyn Bardavid in 1948.

Incomes a bachelor’s diploma with honors, Mr. Ostin enrolled in U.C.L.A.’s legislation faculty however dropped out in 1954 to assist his spouse and their younger son. A job alternative additionally happened via Mr. Granz, who employed him to be the controller for Clef at a time when the label’s roster included such necessary jazz artists as Rely Basie, Ella Fitzgerald and Charlie Parker.

Clef ultimately modified its identify to Verve; about the identical time, Mr. Ostin modified his identify as effectively.

Towards the top of the Fifties, Frank Sinatra tried to purchase the label, impressed by its artist-friendly strategy. However he misplaced out to MGM Data, a disappointment that led him to type his personal firm, Reprise, in 1960. He named Mr. Ostin government vp, with the mission to mannequin the brand new firm on Verve.