Moses Asch

American recording engineer and record executive. Son of Yiddish-language novelist-dramatist-essayist Sholem Asch and younger brother of author Nathan Asch.

Born: December 2, 1905 in Warsaw, Poland
Died: October 19, 1986, New York City, New York, USA

Moe Asch founded his first label, Asch Recording Studios, in 1941 and between 1941-1945 this label, its immediate successor, Asch Recording Studios (from ca. November 1941), and the related Asch Recording Studios label provided an outlet for some important material by folk artists, including Leadbelly, Cisco Houston, and Woody Guthrie. In late 1945, Asch launched the Disc (5) label, which specialized in modern jazz. In December 1949, Asch founded Asch Recording Studios to specialize in folk and ethnic recordings. His masters and rights to the Folkways label were acquired by Smithsonian Folkways in 1987. In addition to producing records, Moe Asch possessed one of the world's finest and most eclectic collections of traditional and folk music as well as jazz.