{"id":32729,"date":"2022-08-02T03:00:41","date_gmt":"2022-08-02T03:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/mo-ostin-music-powerhouse-who-put-artists-first-dies-at-95\/"},"modified":"2022-08-02T03:00:41","modified_gmt":"2022-08-02T03:00:41","slug":"mo-ostin-music-powerhouse-who-put-artists-first-dies-at-95","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/mo-ostin-music-powerhouse-who-put-artists-first-dies-at-95\/","title":{"rendered":"Mo Ostin, Music Powerhouse Who Put Artists First, Dies at 95"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\u201cTo me, the artist is the person who should be in the foreground,\u201d Mr. Ostin said in 1994.<\/p>\n

Still, the industry recognized the significance of his work. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2003, and the Recording Academy honored him with a President’s Merit Award in 2014 and a Trustees Award in 2017.<\/p>\n

He was born Morris Meyer Ostrofsky on March 27, 1927, in Brooklyn to immigrant parents who had come to the United States from Russia during the Communist revolution of 1917. When he was 13, he moved with his parents and his brother, Gerald, to Los Angeles, where the family ran a produce market.<\/p>\n

He was a music fan from an early age, but his introduction to the music business came by happenstance. Living next to his family was the brother of Norman Granz, who owned the jazz label Clef Records and promoted concerts in the 1940s and ’50s. During his college years at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he majored in economics, Mr. Ostin wound up helping Mr. Granz by selling programs for his concerts. He married Evelyn Bardavid in 1948.<\/p>\n

Earning a bachelor’s degree with honors, Mr. Ostin enrolled in UCLA’s law school but dropped out in 1954 to support his wife and their young son. A job opportunity also came about through Mr. Granz, who hired him to be the controller for Clef at a time when the label’s roster included such important jazz artists as Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald and Charlie Parker.<\/p>\n

Clef eventually changed its name to Verve; about the same time Ostin changed his name as well.<\/p>\n

Toward the end of the 1950s, Frank Sinatra tried to buy the label, inspired by its artist-friendly approach. But he lost out to MGM Records, a disappointment that led him to form his own company, Reprise, in 1960. He named Mr. Ostin executive vice president, with the mission to model the new company on Verve.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cTo me, the artist is the person who should be in the foreground,\u201d Mr. Ostin said in 1994. Still, the industry recognized the significance of his work. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2003, and the Recording Academy honored him with a President’s Merit Award in 2014 and a …<\/p>\n

Mo Ostin, Music Powerhouse Who Put Artists First, Dies at 95<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":34218,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/mo-ostin-who-brought-star-musicians-to-warner-records-dies-at-95\/","url_meta":{"origin":32729,"position":0},"title":"Mo Ostin, who brought star musicians to Warner records, dies at 95","date":"August 3, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Mo Ostin, a self-effacing giant of the music business who presided over Warner Bros. Records' rise to a sprawling, billion-dollar empire and helped discover and light artists from Jimi Hendrix to Green Day, died July 31. He was 95.His death was announced in a statement by Warner Records, which said\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Entertainment"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":32689,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/mo-ostin-legendary-warner-bros-records-chief-dead-at-95-billboard\/","url_meta":{"origin":32729,"position":1},"title":"Mo Ostin, Legendary Warner Bros. Records Chief, Dead at 95 \u2013 Billboard","date":"August 2, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Mo Ostinthe legendary label executive who led Warner Brothers Records through a storied time of both artistic and commercial success for more than 30 years, died in his sleep July 31, at the age of 95. Ostin, who signed and\/or worked with such acts at The Kinks, Fleetwood Mac, Joni\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Entertainment"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":33916,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/mo-ostin-label-executive-behind-hendrix-and-the-kinks-dies-aged-95-guitar-com\/","url_meta":{"origin":32729,"position":2},"title":"Mo Ostin, label executive behind Hendrix and The Kinks, dies aged 95 | Guitar.com","date":"August 3, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Mo Ostin, the legendary music executive who helmed Warner Brothers Records for more than 30 years, has died of natural causes at the age of 95. Warner Records co-chairmen, CEO Aaron Bay-Schuck and COO Tom Corson, confirmed the news in a joint statement on Monday, saying: \u201cMo was one of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Entertainment"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":34727,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/producer-russ-titelman-billboard\/","url_meta":{"origin":32729,"position":3},"title":"Producer Russ Titelman \u2013 Billboard","date":"August 3, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Grammy-winning producer Russ Titelman first text Mo Ostin, the legendary executive who ran Reprise and then Warner Records from 1960 to 1994, in the early '60s when Titelman was still a teenager and freshly signed to Screen Gems-Columbia Music as a songwriter. Eventually, Ostin, who died July 31 at 95,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Entertainment"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Russ-Titelman-and-Steve-Winwood-Karen-Petersen-wmg-billboard-1240.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":35343,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/mo-ostin-remembered-as-the-man-who-gave-warner-bros-records-its-soul\/","url_meta":{"origin":32729,"position":4},"title":"Mo Ostin Remembered as the Man Who Gave Warner Bros. Records Its Soul","date":"August 4, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Decades ago, during the early part of my 29-year tenure at Warner Bros. Records (when it still had the \u201cBros\u201d in the name), I thought about what would happen if we ever lost Mo Ostin. I admit it was a dark thought but even then I knew that the company\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Entertainment"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18281,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/claes-oldenburg-a-whimsical-father-of-pop-art-dies-at-93\/","url_meta":{"origin":32729,"position":5},"title":"Claes Oldenburg, a whimsical father of pop art, dies at 93","date":"July 18, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Claes Oldenburg, a Swedish-born artist whose lighthearted caricatures of everyday things \u2014 such as monumental renderings of lipstick and binoculars as well as \u201csoft sculptures\u201d of hamburgers and ice cream cones \u2014 made him a leading force in pop art, died July 18 at his home in Manhattan. He was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Entertainment"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2022\/08\/01\/obituaries\/00Ostin1\/00Ostin1-facebookJumbo.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32729"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32729\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}