National Jazz Museum in Harlem
The magic of jazz improvisation was what Whitney Balliett called "the sound of surprise." He was the longtime jazz reviewer for the New Yorker. Thanks to the epic work by Loren Schoenberg, the founder and chief historian at theNational Jazz Museum in Harlem, this tiny "museum that could"-- after a 30-year search-- is releasing through Apple Music the long lost 1930s-thru-early-40's radio broadcast jazz recordings made by legendary pioneering sound engineer Bill Savory.
This is the "sound of surprise" for the Jitterbug! team since The Savory Collection touches upon the historical underpinnings of the dancical's music and story which are set in 1930's Harlem. And the Cotton Club where some of the earliest live national radio broadcasts were made.
The Savory Collection, a treasure trove of over 1,000 proprietary discs and hundreds of hours of music, is built on the revolutionary recording techniques developed by Savory. Instead of using standard discs suitable for 78rpm records, he used larger discs and recorded at a slower speed. This allowed for longer recordings and encouraged improvisation by jazz musicians. Although the discs were discovered in 2010, it has taken this long to catalog, restore, and remaster them for the collection's first digital release on October 14th : The Savory Collection, Volume I-- Body and Soul: Coleman Hawkins & Friends. This first volume features one of the best examples of what Savory's technique allowed: the increased length of Coleman Hawkins' signature piece Body and Soul.
For us, however, it's knowing that this first volume includes music by members of the Jitterbug! "Creative Team:" Ella Fitzgerald, Chick Webb, and Fats Waller (who also have parts in the dancical!).
Congratulations to the National Jazz Museum in Harlem (which is smack dab in the middle of where most of the action takes place in the play-- just south of the legendary Lafayette Theatre and north of the long forgotten Plantation Club and not too far away from the long gone Savoy Ballroom and Cotton Club). We look forward to future releases.
You can learn more about this epic journey and hear the Coleman Hawkins recording here.
This is the "sound of surprise" for the Jitterbug! team since The Savory Collection touches upon the historical underpinnings of the dancical's music and story which are set in 1930's Harlem. And the Cotton Club where some of the earliest live national radio broadcasts were made.
The Savory Collection, a treasure trove of over 1,000 proprietary discs and hundreds of hours of music, is built on the revolutionary recording techniques developed by Savory. Instead of using standard discs suitable for 78rpm records, he used larger discs and recorded at a slower speed. This allowed for longer recordings and encouraged improvisation by jazz musicians. Although the discs were discovered in 2010, it has taken this long to catalog, restore, and remaster them for the collection's first digital release on October 14th : The Savory Collection, Volume I-- Body and Soul: Coleman Hawkins & Friends. This first volume features one of the best examples of what Savory's technique allowed: the increased length of Coleman Hawkins' signature piece Body and Soul.
For us, however, it's knowing that this first volume includes music by members of the Jitterbug! "Creative Team:" Ella Fitzgerald, Chick Webb, and Fats Waller (who also have parts in the dancical!).
Congratulations to the National Jazz Museum in Harlem (which is smack dab in the middle of where most of the action takes place in the play-- just south of the legendary Lafayette Theatre and north of the long forgotten Plantation Club and not too far away from the long gone Savoy Ballroom and Cotton Club). We look forward to future releases.
You can learn more about this epic journey and hear the Coleman Hawkins recording here.
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