Savoy Records - History

History

Savoy was founded in 1942 by Herman Lubinsky. The Newark, New Jersey label issued many of the important early bebop jazz albums. With the rise of rock and roll, Lubinsky concentrated more on African-American black gospel music, recording many of the finest groups of the 1950s and cementing Savoy's preeminence in the black gospel recording industry through its association with James Cleveland and his Gospel Music Workshop of America.

Savoy's artistic directors have included Buck Ram, Teddy Reig, Ralph Bass (1948‒1952), Fred Mendelsohn (1953), and Ozzie Cadena (1954‒1962) (father of punk rock musician, Dez Cadena).

After Lubinsky's death in 1974, Clive Davis (then manager of Arista Records) acquired Savoy's catalog. The current owner of its jazz and blues material is Columbia Music Entertainment of Japan which operates in the US as Savoy Label Group (SLG). In 1986, Malaco Records acquired Savoy's black gospel titles and contracts.

Many of the label's African-American artists begrudged label founder, Herman Lubinsky, feeling grossly underpaid for their work. Tiny Price, a journalist for the African-American newspaper, The Newark Herald News, said of Savoy and Lubinsky:

There's no doubt everybody hated Herman Lubinsky. If he messed with you, you were messed. At the same time, some of those people ‒ many of them Newark's top singers and musicians ‒ would never have been exposed to records if he didn't do what he did. Except for Lubinsky, all the hot little numbers, like Buddy Johnson's "Cherry" would have been lost. The man may have been hated, but he saved a lot of our history for us and for future generations.

In the early 1960s, Savoy recorded a number of avant-garde jazz artists, giving them important early exposure. These included Paul Bley, Ed Curran, Bill Dixon, Marc Levin, Charles Moffett, Perry Robinson, Joseph Scianni, Archie Shepp, Sun Ra, Marzette Watts, and Valdo Williams.