SAVORY COLLECTION 1935-1940-MOSAIC 6 CD BOX BRAND NEW/SEALED.

“Imagine finding an unknown play by Shakespeare or an unknown novel by Mark Twain.

That’s what this is.”

Six CDs with 108 tracks locked away for more than 70 years and finally available on CD for the very first time anywhere! Broadcast material professionally recorded onto lacquer discs and aluminum discs by Bill Savory and lovingly restored by the pre-eminent restoration engineer Doug Pomeroy.

“Then came the shock of my life! Could it be? Basie, then Fats Waller, Ella Fitzgerald, Coleman Hawkins, and that was just in the first couple of boxes! The discs were mostly aluminum – that was unusual – and in varying states of decomposition, but some were absolutely pristine. Gene asked if I would like to take a few discs back to New York to sample. I managed a seemingly disinterested “Well, if you’d like me to”, grabbed a handful, including an unblemished 12” Basie Honeysuckle Rose and got out of there before he could change his mind” – Loren Schoenberg, National Jazz Museum of Harlem

For Loren Schoenberg of the Jazz Museum of Harlem, it’s the discovery that capped nearly forty years of searching. For Mosaic, it’s the “find” that has us re-examining an era we thought we knew inside out.

And now, for listeners, it’s an historic and fleeting opportunity to own a treasure trove of previously unknown music.

Mosaic Records presents “The Savory Collection” – six CDs with 108 tracks locked away for more than 70 years and finally available on CD for the very first time anywhere. The recordings are from the personal collection of Bill Savory, a studio engineer in New York whose day job in the late 1930s and early 1940s was transcribing radio broadcasts for foreign distribution, and whose nighttime passion was turning on the disc recorders to pull in and preserve what was happening in the clubs of New York City and other cities.

Hidden Away. Until Now!

It was an era when TV didn’t exist yet, live music was everywhere, and radio stations would serve it to their audiences – in what everyone thought were once-in-a-lifetime experiences. But no one counted on a guy like Bill Savory being on the other end of a radio signal.

Savory had always been cagey and unresponsive when asked about his collection. There were rumors it contained jewels. We’re here to report – it does:

• Thirteen tracks from the original, under-rated John Kirby sextet featuring some of the finest soloists of the day: Buster Bailey, Charlie Shavers, Russell Procope, Billy Kyle and O’Neill Spencer.

• Chick Webb, Ella Fitzgerald and Roy Eldridge as guest stars on the CBS radio hit of the day “The Saturday Night Swing Club”.

• Broadcasts from the legendary Café Society, Famous Door, Panther Room, Onyx Club and regularly scheduled radio programs with a cream of jazz stars.

• Joe Sullivan improvising at the piano – solo — during a private party. A chance for him to loosen up, stretch out, and experiment.

• And an unknown version of “Body and Soul” by Coleman Hawkins, recorded live just seven months after his earth-shattering recording in 1939 that most listeners believe laid down an entirely new point of view about jazz soloing. As important as that original recording was, this newly-found version might be EVEN BETTER.

• A wealth of classic Count Basie live when Lester Young, Herschel Evans and were with that classic, trendsetting orchestra making jazz and big band history.

The Sound of a City

Most recordings in the collection were from dates in New York, the center of the world in jazz in that era. Other recordings in this collection were from clubs in Boston, Asbury Park, and Chicago, or from the radio studios of WNEW, CBS and NBC.

Swing was still a significant factor, but the earliest strains and seeds of bebop were being planted. Everything was happening at once. At clubs such as Café Society, the Savoy Ballroom, and the Onyx Club. Or at a place called the Fiesta Danceteria on 42nd street, “the world’s first self-service nightclub,” where Hawkins topped his own recording of “Body and Soul” in a performance that was never meant to be immortalized. It was just a night like any other night, and there was magic every night.

Imagine Count Basie at the Famous Door with Lester Young, just three years after Lester’s recording debut. He was first heard on songs such as “Boogie Woogie” and “Lady Be Good” with Basie, and here he was performing them live. And alongside him was Herschel Evans, whose talent can now be reassessed.

Or, revel in the showmanship and exuberance of Fats Waller from a place called The Yacht Club, where the fun and frivolity of a casual club date takes you deep in the world of these men and women who did this night after night.

You couldn’t see it at home – or Savory from his recording studio — but you can imagine the spotlight hitting the microphone and Ella Fitzgerald or Mildred Bailey stepping into the light to hold a room – and a radio audience – in their hands.

The Sound of an Era

Those artists are all here on the Savory collection, along with Teddy Wilson, Albert Ammons, Benny Carter, Bobby Hackett, Chick Webb … the list goes on and on.

Savory’s achievement in recording and preserving this material can’t be overstated. You could be at home around your radio, but you didn’t have the equipment in the studio where Savory tinkered and invented. The glory of these broadcasts in many cases heard here is that he was capturing live music without the limitation of a 3 or 4 minute 78 rpm recording. If the club version of a song went for six minutes, no matter. Savory got every note of it.

I have derived more pleasure from this Mosaic Box than any of their other brilliant collections of genius, and given Mosaic’s accomplishments, that’s really saying something. Listening to this collection is like a Time Machine trip to the 52nd Street of 1935-1940, when jazz clubs lined both sides of the street for two full blocks of the city and speakers at the doorway broadcast appetizers of what was playing inside. Take a stroll and experience Coleman Hawkins inventing modern improvisational instrumental jazz…Chick Webb’s Orchestra with a young vocalist named Ella Fitzgerald…Fats Waller owning the house…Count Basie, Lionel Hampton, and so much more. This is the indispensable Mosaic Box!