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The Daily OrangeVintage vinyl
200,000 records donated to SU
By Melissa Daniels
Posted: 8/28/08, 12:51 AM EST Section: News
Savada founded Records Revisited in 1977. He set up the store on the previous site of his family's clothing manufacturing company, just across from the Empire State Building in Manhattan.
The store was his life, said his youngest son Alan, who helped build the shelves in the store the summer before it opened.
Running the store made Savada an expert on jazz and popular 20th century music.
Throughout his time running Records Revisited, Savada often worked with filmmakers who were looking for a particular piece, including multiple times with director Woody Allen.
One year, when he took his son Alan to a Yankees game as part of a birthday ritual, he stopped and chatted with a friend of his - a friend he introduced to his son as Count Basie, legendary jazz pianist and bandleader.
After decades running the store, Savada became unable to spend long days working the way he used to.
"He slowed down the last couple of years," Alan said. "He used to go in there at 9, then he would go in at 10."
In January 2006, Savada underwent surgery that left him unable to work the same long hours.
"He tried to go back afterward, but he never could," Alan said.
Savada passed away in his home in Harrison, N.Y., on Feb. 11 at age 85.
Savada's eldest son, Eli, said SU was chosen as the sole benefactor of the collection because his father was familiar with Belfer through the Association for Recorded Sound Collection. Eli's daughter, Shira, graduated from SU in 2005.
"He didn't want to sell it," Eli said of his father's wishes. "And he didn't want it split up."
When the records arrived in July, the first box opened by Thorin held recordings of poet Carl Sandburg. The second box held a record from Julliard-trained pianist Hazel Scott, who became the first African-American woman to have her own television show in 1950.
"The third record box I opened had Duke Ellington and his band," she said. "On the record jackets there were little pencil markings by, I assume, Morty Savada, saying who the individual musicians in the band were. He used to use Records Revisited as a place for people to come and talk about the recordings, so he knew who was in Duke Ellington's band at the time."
The store was his life, said his youngest son Alan, who helped build the shelves in the store the summer before it opened.
Running the store made Savada an expert on jazz and popular 20th century music.
Throughout his time running Records Revisited, Savada often worked with filmmakers who were looking for a particular piece, including multiple times with director Woody Allen.
One year, when he took his son Alan to a Yankees game as part of a birthday ritual, he stopped and chatted with a friend of his - a friend he introduced to his son as Count Basie, legendary jazz pianist and bandleader.
After decades running the store, Savada became unable to spend long days working the way he used to.
"He slowed down the last couple of years," Alan said. "He used to go in there at 9, then he would go in at 10."
In January 2006, Savada underwent surgery that left him unable to work the same long hours.
"He tried to go back afterward, but he never could," Alan said.
Savada passed away in his home in Harrison, N.Y., on Feb. 11 at age 85.
Savada's eldest son, Eli, said SU was chosen as the sole benefactor of the collection because his father was familiar with Belfer through the Association for Recorded Sound Collection. Eli's daughter, Shira, graduated from SU in 2005.
"He didn't want to sell it," Eli said of his father's wishes. "And he didn't want it split up."
When the records arrived in July, the first box opened by Thorin held recordings of poet Carl Sandburg. The second box held a record from Julliard-trained pianist Hazel Scott, who became the first African-American woman to have her own television show in 1950.
"The third record box I opened had Duke Ellington and his band," she said. "On the record jackets there were little pencil markings by, I assume, Morty Savada, saying who the individual musicians in the band were. He used to use Records Revisited as a place for people to come and talk about the recordings, so he knew who was in Duke Ellington's band at the time."
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Jerzy Marchwinski
posted 9/22/08 @ 2:10 PM EST
Moving and beautiful. Jerzy
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