William A. Savory

William A. Savory (11 June 1916 — 11 February 2004) was an American audio engineer who worked at Columbia Records, Inc. on William S. Bachman's team and directly contributed to the market launch of a modern 33⅓ RPM long-playing record in 1948. Savory was a Charter Member and Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society. He was married to Helen Ward, a jazz/swing singer who performed with Benny Goodman's orchestra. Savory was born to French and Italian parents aboard the ocean liner RMS Mauretania. He grew up in New Jersey and Southern California. William played piano and saxophone but gradually became more interested in technical aspects and began constructing the first recording devices in the mid-1930s. He specialized in transcription recordings of live on-air broadcasts for radio networks and advertising agencies, amassing an extensive archive of 12" and 16" lacquer-coated discs featuring some of the most seminal jazz performers of the 1930s: Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Bunny Berigan and Harry James. Savory made direct-to-disc transfers of many historically significant events, such as Benny Goodman's New York performance on 16 January 1938 at Carnegie Hall, hauled by critic Bruce Eder as "the single most important concert in jazz or popular music history." In 2010, the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, New York, acquired Savory's vast collection.