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William Savory


William Alcott Savory (June 11, 1916 – February 11, 2004), also known as Bill Savory, was an audio engineer known for his extensive private recordings of important jazz musicians in the 1930s, and for his contributions to recording technology. A musician who developed an interest in sound engineering, Savory began building his own recording devices in the mid-1930s. Savory was involved with the team led by Columbia Records engineer William Bachman that succeeded in bringing the first 33⅓ rpm long-playing record albums to market in 1948.

Savory was born William Alcott Savory of French and Italian parents aboard the ocean liner Mauretania. He played the piano and the saxophone. He grew up in New Jersey and Southern California. He was married to Helen Ward, a former singer in Benny Goodman's band.

Savory specialized in transcribing live performances off the air for radio networks and advertisers, and recorded a large number of radio broadcasts which featured American jazz musicians, classical musicians, and spoken word broadcasts in the 1930s. The radio recordings of the live broadcasts, made before the introduction of tape, were known to only a handful of people until they were acquired by the National Jazz Museum in Harlem in 2010. They were recorded on 12- or 16-inch discs, made of raw aluminum or lacquer coated aluminum (called incorrectly "acetates"). Because they were recorded at speeds of 33⅓ rpm, Savory was able to record longer performances than were previously available on 10-inch 78 rpm shellac discs, which could capture only about three minutes of music.


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