His name was "Bill Savory", legally
known as William Desavouret.
He may very well have been the world's first "audio
pirate". But jazz afficiandoes the world over owe
a great deal of respect for this man, legal issues
notwithstanding. Bill was a Fellow of the Audio
Engineering Society, and had a varied as well as storied
career. Among other things, he was on the development team
at Columbia Records in the late 1940's that gave the world the
LP record. But we are getting way ahead of ourselves...
In the mid to late 1930's, Bill worked for a firm in New York
City that made disk recordings of radio programs for the
networks, stations and the sponsors. After he was done
with the day's work, he made hundreds of "bootleg" LIVE jazz
recordings for his personal collection. Understand
that audio tape would not come into common use until a decade
later, courtesy of the Germans (it has been said that one of the
first things the Allies confiscated from the Germans were tape
recorders). Only one session was ever released to the
public, the first jazz concert held at New York's Carnegie Hall
in January of 1938 (amazing but true-this recording is
still in print over sixty years after it was first released!).
Seems that Bill had quite a collection, nearly a thousand discs
worth. Being the packrat he was, as well as being nervous
about what he did later on in life (he also worked on
"classified projects" for the US Government), this treasure
trove of music did not see the light of day for over sixty
years!
Bill left this world for the big bandstand in the sky in
2004. But word of this massive collection of nearly 1000
discs was legion. Enter a determined man by the name of
Loren Schoenberg, the curator of the National Jazz Museum in
Harlem. Mr. Schoenberg tracked down Bill's son Eugene, who
lives in Illinois. Eugene knew he had a treasure trove of
musical history in moldy, rotting boxes, but did not know what
to do with it. Mr. Schoenberg moved the entire collection
to NYC in mid-2010 and the recovery work is under way.
Hopefully, at some point in time, this wonderful collection of
music can be released to the public at large-for now, though,
you have to go to the National Jazz Museum to listen to it.
Unless, of course, you want to come to our meeting on February
20th!
for more information on "The Savory Collection", click the box
above this message
Meeting Information:
