Jerome S. Moss (born May 8, 1935) is an American recording executive, best known for being the co-founder of

A&M Records A&M Records was an American record label founded as an independent company by Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss in 1962. Due to the success of the discography A&M released, the label garnered interest and was acquired by PolyGram in 1989 and began distr ...

, along with

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

player and bandleader

Herb Alpert Herb Alpert (born March 31, 1935) is an American trumpeter who led the band Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass in the 1960s. During the same decade, he co-founded A&M Records with Jerry Moss. Alpert has recorded 28 albums that have landed on the ...

Music career

After graduating from Brooklyn College with a degree in English and serving in the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

, Moss began his music career by promoting "

16 Candles ''Sixteen Candles'' is a 1984 American coming-of-age story, coming-of-age comedy film starring Molly Ringwald, Michael Schoeffling, and Anthony Michael Hall. Written and directed by John Hughes (filmmaker), John Hughes in his List of directorial ...

", a 1958 hit for

the Crests The Crests were an American doo-wop group, formed by bass vocalist J.T. Carter in the mid 1950s. The group had several Top 40 hits in the late 1950s and early 1960s on Coed Records. Their most popular song, " 16 Candles", rose to #2 on the ' ...

Coed Records George Paxton and Marvin Cane formed Coed Records, Inc. in New York City in 1958, and had offices at 1619 Broadway in the Brill Building. George Paxton produced many of the songs on this label, most of which were of the East Coast Doo-wop group ...

. In 1960 he moved to California, where he teamed up with Alpert, forming Carnival Records in 1962 and running the company from an office in Alpert's garage. Discovering that the name was already taken, they dubbed their new-found company

. Moss and Alpert agreed in 1987 to sell A&M to

PolyGram Records PolyGram N.V. was a multinational entertainment company and major music record label formerly based in the Netherlands. It was founded in 1962 as the Grammophon-Philips Group by Dutch corporation Philips and German corporation Siemens, to be a ...

for a reported $500 million. Both continued to manage the label until 1993, when they left because of frustrations with PolyGram's constant pressure to force the label to fit into its corporate culture. In 1998, Alpert and Moss sued PolyGram for breach of the integrity clause, eventually settling for an additional $200 million payment. Alpert and Moss then expanded their

Almo Sounds Almo Sounds was a record label which was started in 1994 by Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss after they sold A&M Records to PolyGram. The intent for the label was to recreate the initial concept of A&M Records as a small, "boutique" label. The label ...

music publishing company to produce records as well, using it as a vehicle for Alpert's music. Almo Sounds imitates the former company culture embraced by Alpert and Moss when they first started A&M. Moss, Herb Alpert and Herb's cousin Steve Alpert were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006 as non-performers.

Horse racing

In 2004, Moss was appointed to the

California Horse Racing Board The California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) was established in 1933 as an independent agency of the State of California, United States. The CHRB has authority over the regulation of horse racing and parimutuel betting at licensed California race trac ...

, replacing longtime television producer Alan Landsburg. He is a longtime

horse-breeder Horse breeding is reproduction in horses, and particularly the human-directed process of selective breeding of animals, particularly purebred horses of a given breed. Planned matings can be used to produce specifically desired characteristics in ...

and owner who received the largest ever first-place purse from the Kentucky Derby in 2005 after the victory of the first horse he had ever entered in that race, Giacomo. In 2011, he was inducted into the

Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame The Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, in Beverly Hills, California, is a hall of fame dedicated to honoring American Jewish athletes, other sports personalities, and teams from Southern California who have distinguished themselves ...

Personal life

Jerry Moss married Tina (Morse) Moss in 2019, after dating since 2016. They live in

Bel Air, California Bel Air (or Bel-Air) is a residential neighborhood on the Westside of Los Angeles, California, in the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains. Founded in 1923, it is the home of the Hannah Carter Japanese Garden and the American Jewish Universi ...

, and

Maui, Hawaii The island of Maui (; Hawaiian: ) is the second-largest of the islands of the state of Hawaii at 727.2 square miles (1,883 km2) and is the 17th largest island in the United States. Maui is the largest of Maui County's four islands, whic ...

Philanthropy

In 2020, Jerry and his wife Tina donated $25,000,000 to The Music Center in downtown Los Angeles. This was the largest single contribution ever made to The Music Center.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Moss, Jerry 1935 births Living people Brooklyn College alumni A&M Records American music industry executives Record producers from New York (state) Grammy Award winners American racehorse owners and breeders Owners of Kentucky Derby winners Owners of a Breeders' Cup winner