The Jazz Museum in Harlem

104 E. 126th Street • Suite 2D • New York, NY 10035

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Jazz for Curious Listeners
The Savory Collection: An Update -- Odds and Ends: Louis Jordan+
December 18, 2012

Some of the items in the Savory Collection don't fall into easy categories - like the very first broadcasts of the little known Louis Jordan band broadcasting from Harlem, or out takes of Dinah Shore, or an all night jam session with the pianist Joe Sullivan. You'll hear them tonight!

In 2010, the National Jazz Museum in Harlem made headlines across the country with the acquisition of the legendary Savory Collection, an extraordinary archive of live musical recordings from the Swing Era. Recorded between 1935 and 1941 by audio engineer and jazz enthusiast William Savory, the Savory Collection features never-before-heard live recordings of jazz legends at the height of their careers, including Billie Holiday, Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, and Louis Armstrong. The Savory Collection expands the Museum's archives of jazz artifacts, ephemera and recordings, which include its extensive Duke Ellington and Ralph Ellison collections. The Jazz Museum makes these holdings available to the general public through its jazz library, exhibitions, live performances, audio research stations, artist talks, workshops, and youth education programs.

With support from the Grammy Foundation, the New York Community Trust and other funders, the Jazz Museum has completed the first phase of a project to preserve these important recordings by transferring them to CD or DVD format. The digitization process has been completed to high standards, assuring that these recordings are no longer at risk but will be accessible in perpetuity. As we move forward, the next phases of this project will focus on working to restore these recordings to even higher audio standards; completing the discography to ensure the thoroughness and accuracy of the documentation for each recording; and making the recordings broadly available to the jazz scholars and aficionados who are eager to hear them - and to study, analyze and contextualize what they reveal about the jazz artists, music and culture of a historic era.

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