Gather round, friends, and let me tell you a little about the not-so-distant past when live jazz was regularly heard on the radio. You had shows like the Saturday Night Swing Club, the Make Believe Ballroom, and the Camel Caravan, plus remote broadcasts from nightclubs and ballrooms across the country. Broadcast material, usually captured directly off the air on unsophisticated recording equipment, has been issued over the decades by a variety of fly-by-night bootleggers. Jazz fans have, by and large, tolerated the so-so sound in order to hear music that otherwise was lost.
Bill Savory was a pioneer in recording technology, beginning with an early transcription service in the Thirties. Eventually he worked his way up to Columbia Records, where he was part of the team that successfully developed the 33 1/3 rpm long playing record. Later he was the chief engineer at Angel Records/EMI, worked for a space technology lab, and founded Lyricon Records, among many other accomplishments. After he retired from the business world in 1989, he devoted a large part of his time to the digital conversion of the many airchecks he’d recorded in the 1930's. Very few of his recordings have been heard by the general public, aside from a batch of Benny Goodman airchecks that Goodman himself heard and approved. Saxophonist and educator Loren Schoenberg had heard about Savory’s archive, was in touch with him until Savory’s death in 2004, and has been trying ever since to acquire and preserve it. Finally, in the first half of 2010, Schoenberg reached a deal with Savory’s son to acquire the collection for the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, where Schoenberg serves as the executive director. Scott Wenzel of Mosaic Records helped to catalog and pack the archive for shipment. That’s the back story for the glorious collection The Savory Collection 1935-1940, a six disc compilation of previously unissued material. The first few pages of the included 36-page booklet detail the history of the collection, the trip to the Midwest to get it ready for the Jazz Museum, and the difficulties in handling fragile discs that had not been stored in the best conditions. Considering all the problems involved, including mold and water stains, the audio restoration by Doug Pomeroy qualifies as miraculous.
The music begins with an utter masterpiece as Coleman Hawkins plays Body and Soul in a 1940 recording from the Fiesta Danceteria in New York. Freed from the time limitations of a 78-rpm disc, Hawkins stretches out for nearly 6 minutes of sublime jazz. That one track alone almost makes this anthology essential for jazz fans, but as the old song goes, you ain’t heard nothing yet. Among the other stars of the era to make appearances here are Fats Waller, Mildred Bailey, Glenn Miller, Bobby Hackett, and Teddy Wilson. There’s a generous sampling of John Kirby’s ensemble, with ten excellent-sounding tracks, most of them broadcast in 1940 on the Sunday night CBS program Flow Gently, Sweet Rhythm. Also to be treasured are recordings of one time only groupings like the 25-minute Fats Waller jam session from the Make Believe Ballroom in November 1938 with a band including the Teagarden brothers (Charlie on trumpet and Jack on trombone), clarinetist Pee Wee Russell, tenor saxophonist Bud Freeman and drummer Zutty Singleton; a Jack Teagarden jam from 1939 with Charlie Shavers and a vocal by Johnny Mercer; and Roy Eldridge, Chick Webb and Ella Fitzgerald appearing with the Saturday Night Swing Club Studio Orchestra in August 1938. Those are just some of the treats on the first four CDs. The final pair of discs is devoted to the Count Basie Orchestra in remotes from 1938 to 1940, including a batch from the band’s extended engagement at the Famous Door in New York. As Loren Schoenberg notes, “It’s fair to say that absent radio broadcasts, Count Basie and his band might never have made it out of Kansas City.” John Hammond heard the band on the radio when he was driving to Chicago in late 1935, and a year later, the Basie group opened at the Roseland Ballroom in New York. A couple of years after that, the Famous Door broadcasts spread the band’s sound far and wide, and the rest, as they say, is history. This edition of the band featured Lester Young, Buck Clayton, Jimmy Rushing, and the All-American Rhythm Section of Basie, guitarist Freddie Green, bassist Walter Page, and drummer Jo Jones. To have over two hours of music from this ensemble rescued from the airwaves is like a gift from the gods.
The Savory Collection 1935-1940 is an indispensable repository of classic jazz, with hours of great music that could have been lost forever, but instead was preserved by a visionary engineer, and is now available to all. Absolutely recommended.
Mosaic MD6-266; Disc 1 (76:38): Coleman Hawkins (3/17/40); Ella Fitzgerald (8/13/38); Fats Waller (10/22/38); Lionel Hampton (12/28/38); Carl Kress & Dick McDonough (3/29/36); Emilio Caceres Trio (10/19/37). Disc 2 (71:05): Albert Ammons (12/14/39); Roy Eldridge (8/13/38); Roy Eldridge/Chick Webb (8/13/38); Fats Waller (11/23/38); John Kirby (7/28/40, 8/4/40, 6/23/40, 6/2/40, 7/14/40, & 3/24/38); Benny Carter (4/17/39); Joe Sullivan (12/40/39). Disc 3 (62:43): Joe Marsala (12/7/38); Bobby Hackett 6/23/40, 8/17/38); Jack Teagarden (1/11/39); Mildred Bailey (9/19/35, 3/29/36); Stuff Smith (3/29/36, 5/29/38). Disc 4 (55:16): Teddy Wilson (12/29/39); Glenn Miller (7/7/38, 2/3/40); Joe Sullivan (5/26/40, 1/1/38, 1/28/40). Disc 5 (59:58): Count Basie (5/29/38, 8/18/38, 8/28/38, 8/30/38, 8/31/38, 10/11/38, 10/12/38). Disc 6 (64:30): Count Basie (10/19/38, 10/30/38, 11/2/38, 11/6/38, 4/2/39, 5/19/39, 12/9/39, 2/28/40). Limited edition of 5,000 albums, available exclusively at www.mosaicrecords.com. Complete discographical details are available at http://www.mosaicrecords.com/discography.asp?number=266-MD-CD&price=$99.00&copies=6%20CDs.
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