Certain collections of music are so rich and deep that it feels like a listener could almost swim in them. This six-disc, 108-track set feels bottomless. It also represents one of the greatest provenance accounts in all of jazz. Someone ought to write a short story about it.
Bill Savory was a reticent New York recording engineer in the 1930s and 1940s who had a cool nocturnal habit: While transcribing radio broadcasts for foreign distribution, he liked to multitask, flipping on his recorders and capturing what was going out over the airwaves from live jazz-club performances that were only meant to be heard once. That is, if there had been no Bill Savory.
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading
Become a JazzTimes member to explore our complete archive of interviews, profiles, columns, and reviews written by music's best journalists and critics.
