The Savory Collection

For those of you who joined me today, I mentioned the Savory Collection. It is truly one of the great hidden treasures of jazz. TLDR, Bill Savory was a sound engineer who made lots of recordings of live on air performances and jams that were actually really good sound quality and a couple of years ago his collection was unearthed and there is a TON of good stuff on there. For a really high-quality copy of the collection, look no further than the good foks at Mozaic who always do an amazing job and whose liner notes are the best around.

The National Jazz Museum in Harlem has some videos on YouTube about the man and his collection. Above is Part One - Who Was Bill Savory and here are links for more:

Part 2 - The Big Bands

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByTkll7yL3Q

Part 3 - The Jam Sessions

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJmj4_PARM8

Part 4 - The Small Bands

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRRx_iGS-fY

Do yourself a favor and check out some of these recordings. In particular some of the live on air Count Basie stuff. Toweringly good!

-P

December Live Events for members

To close out the year we're doing another Warm Up Get Down next week. Then comes our usual live class and newly revamped "Community Practice". Then we say goodbye to 2021 with a Holiday Dance Party co-DJed by both of us for a mix of swing and otherwise :)

Thank you to all our members. You have absolutely made 2021 better for us and we so appreciate you. Looking forward to some changes to the membership plus opening registration for it in the new year!

-P&N

December 2021 Masters Challenge

Whenever we create a Masters Challenge routine we try to find a spark for creativity - a theme, a song, a vibe, a step - something to help create the piece. For this one we looked to old Hollywood - specifically the influential dancer Dean Collins and his partner Jewel McGowan. We are far from perfect copies, but we enjoyed taking our inspiration from such stylish dancers!