Originally from Ahoskie NC, Ron is a 1984 graduate of Berklee College of Music.

Ron has an extensive performance background in recording, television and movie soundtracks and live performance.

Over the past 30 years he has performed and conducted workshops at hundreds of jazz festivals and music venues worldwide including: the Umbria Jazz Festival in Perugia, Italy, Berlin Jazz Festival, Newport Jazz Festival, Jacksonville Jazz Festival, Montreux Jazz Festival, the Blue Note Jazz Club, NYC, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Blues Alley in Washington DC, Free Jazz Festival in Sao Paulo Brazil, Tri-C Jazz Festival, Munich Jazz Festival, the Heineken Jazz Festival in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Monterey Jazz Festival, Cambridge Jazz Festival, Ronnie Scott’s in London, Chicago Jazz Festival, Atlanta Jazz Festival, Kriol jazz Festival in Praia, Capo Verde, Ottobrunn Jazz Festival, Yoshi’s in Oakland, California, International Jazz Meeting in Heraklion, Crete, the North Sea Jazz Festival in Den Hague, Holland, Tokyo Jazz Festival, National Theatre in Taipei, Taiwan, ABC 20/20, CBS Sunday Morning,  and the Santa Fe Jazz Festival among many others.

Ron has appeared with a wide array of performers including jazz masters: James Moody, Clark Terry, Curtis Fuller, Joe Zawinul and the Czech Brno Philharmonic Orchestra, Mulgrew Miller, Cyrus Chestnut, Nnenna Freelon, Vanessa Rubin, tap dancers Jimmy Slyde, Dianne Walker and Buster Brown, trumpeter Cecil Bridgewater, vocalist Marlena Shaw, Sam Rivers, bluesman Albert King, Gary Bartz, James Williams, Marian McPartland, Cecilia Smith, Lionel Hampton, Michele Camilio, Johnny Griffin, Steve Nelson, John Medeski, Christian McBride, Sean Jones, Bill Pierce, Donald Brown, Russell Malone, Walter Beasley, and Bobby McFerrin.

Mr. Savage currently serves as Dean of the Professional Performance Division at Berklee College of Music and along with his wife Lois directs Abundant Life Music Instruction in Cambridge MA.  Founded in 1999, Abundant Life Music Instruction is a non-profit Saturday music school dedicated to providing inner city youth with affordable music lessons and instruments.  Ron co-founded the Cambridge Jazz Festival and the Johnny Hodges Scholarship Fund with Cambridge resident Larry Ward.