Died On This Date (April 9, 2008) Ozzie Cadena / Savoy Records Producer
themusicsover Ozzie Cadena
September 26, 1924 – April 9, 2008
Ozzie Cadena was born in Oklahoma City in 1924, but soon moved to Newark, New Jersey with his family. After he served in WWII, Cadena enrolled in a New York music school where he studied the bass and piano. His first music job was on a jazz radio show back in Newark. It was there that he was hired by the legendary Savoy label to work as an in-house producer. During his eight years at Savoy, Cadena worked on recordings by the likes of Cal Tjader, McCoy Tyner, Bill Evans, Cannonball Adderley, Nat Adderley, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Mingus, Esther Phillips, John Lee Hooker and many more. In the years after he left Savoy, he spent time at Prestige, Blue Note and Fantasy Records. Cadena moved his family to Hermosa Beach, California in the mid-‘70s and continued to work with the music he loved, mostly booking and promoting shows at jazz clubs around Los Angeles, including the legendary Lighthouse, known as one of the flashpoints of West Coast Jazz. Ozzie Cadena suffered a stroke in 2007 and passed away of pneumonia on April 9, 2008 at the age of 83.
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