Jerry Moss formed two partnerships with musician Herb Alpert that would have a significant impact on the music and horse racing industries.
Alpert and Moss started A&M Records in Los Angeles in 1962 and recorded some of the era's biggest artists while becoming the music industry's most successful independent label over the next 25 years. Their success earned them entry into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006.
It was Alpert who also partnered with Moss on some claiming horses in the late 1970s that brought Moss into Thoroughbred racing, where he achieved success with victories in the Kentucky Derby by Giacomo and the Breeders' Cup Classic with Zenyatta, whose only defeat in a 20-race career came in her final start. The latter brought Moss to another Hall of Fame, the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., where he and his then-wife, Ann Holbrook Moss, were on hand for Zenyatta's induction in 2016.
Moss, 88, died peacefully in his home in Bel Air, Calif., on Wednesday. According to an obituary posted online by his family, he was “surrounded by family and friends who loved and cherished him.”
Born May 8, 1935, during the Great Depression in New York City, Jerome Sheldon Moss was raised in the Bronx. He graduated from Brooklyn College as an English major and served in the U.S. Army before beginning his music industry career in the late 1950s as a promoter for Coed Records in New York. After moving to California in 1960, he met Alpert (a trumpet player whose Tijuana Brass band would go on to achieve great success) and the two men each put up $100 to start A&M Records in a garage.
The business grew, thanks to popular albums like Carol King's “Tapestry,” Peter Frampton's “Frampton Comes Live,” and hit singles from a variety of artists from the Captain and Tennille to the Police. Other artists A&M discovered or signed included Joe Cocker, The Carpenters, Janet Jackson, Soundgarden and Styx.
Moss would name Giacomo after Police lead singer Sting's son. Zenyatta was named for the Police's third studio album, “Zenyatta Mondatta.”
Alpert and Moss sold A&M Records to Polygram for a reported $500 million in 1989.
As a horse owner, mostly in partnership with Ann, Jerry Moss campaigned more than 60 stakes winner, including Grade 1 winners Ruhlmann, Gormley, Tiago, and Sardula. The latter filly by Storm Cat won the 1994 Kentucky Oaks, giving the Mosses the first leg of a rare Oaks-Derby double as owners.
Moss served as a commissioner on the California Horse Racing Board for eight years from 2004-12 and was elected as a member of The Jockey Club in 2009. After his marriage with Ann ended in 2017, Moss would remarry the former Tina Morse in 2019, and the couple campaigned horses in the name of Jerome S. Moss and Tina Moss, including Lady T, winner of the Grade 3 Las Flores Stakes in 2022. Lady T. gave the couple their last racetrack victory when she won a Del Mar allowance race on July 27.
Moss was a supporter of Thoroughbred aftercare, making generous donations to, among other organizations, Old Friends Equine in Georgetown, Ky.
Outside of racing, Jerry Moss was a philanthropist committed to a variety of causes. In 2004, he established the Moss Scholars program at UCLA for students interested in art, architecture and music. In 2020, he and Tina donated $25 million to the Music Center in Los Angeles, where the 25,000 square foot Jerry Moss Plaza will be a long-lasting legacy, hosting free outdoor concerts thanks to what was described as the largest gift of its kind. Moss also supported numerous health care initiatives, the Geffen Playhouse, Exceptional Children's Foundation and many other causes.
“We respected him for his accomplishments, but adored him for his kindness,” the family's obituary said. “Jerry was a strong, genuine, intelligent, resilient, and hilariously funny, man. … They truly don't make them like him anymore and we will miss conversations with him about everything under the sun … the twinkle in his eyes as he approached every moment ready for the next adventure.”
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