Computer software is helping to solve a musical mystery from the last century.
It is often difficult to tell who is performing on vintage jazz recordings, so two "jazz detectives" from North Carolina are trying to match anonymous musicians with the old melodies.
Tom Smith, Pfeiffer University music professor and jazz trombonist, says it's time to set the record straight -- about a lot of records.
"There didn't seem to be enough attention paid to detail... in jazz history, and a lot of times it became what one of my professors once said was the lie that was agreed upon," Smith said.
During the Prohibition era, Smith says, record producers often tried to pass off the work of unknown imitators as the product of stars like jazz great Bix Beiderbecke. And they largely got away with it.
"At that time, a lot of people never believed that jazz recordings would really be anything that anybody would care about 40 or 50 years down the line," Smith said.
But recent advances in voice-recognition technology convinced Smith and research partner Gary Westbrook that there must be a way to measure every horn player's unique voice, or tone.
"The things that are going to make you and I sound different on the same instrument are the makeup of our face, the makeup of the chambers of our body, the diaphragm, the amount of breath support we are able to generate," Westbrook said. "All of those things that also make us individual with our voice, the way that we breathe, the way that we talk."
In their research, Smith and Westbrook decided to use sound-wave analysis software by SpectraPlus. The software measures frequency -- low notes on the left, to high notes on the right -- and loudness. Tone is measured by how loud a sound is at certain frequencies.
Westbrook randomly samples each mystery soloist three times, then compares the data with a known soloist on another recording.
"[For example], if one of them was a known -- Bix Beiderbecke -- the other was an unknown artist. If they are identified as not statistically significant, then we say that it must be the same artist," Westbrook said.
But the colorful characters from the early age of jazz often seem to be trying to evade detection.
In one Beiderbecke recording Smith and Westbrook studied, the musician misses an obvious note in a solo in an otherwise polished recording. Would a great cornetist like Beiderbecke botch it that badly?
Smith says it's possible. "He was a chronic alcoholic, he had a lot of emotional problems."
"I think Bix would probably would be very embarrassed by it all," Westbrook said. "He probably thought that 20 years after his death no one would ever listen to him play again."
But jazz history must be corrected now, Smith says, not only to credit the mystery musicians for their work, but to solidify jazz's place in the human cultural record.
"Otherwise, this will be guesswork forever, and the lie that is agreed upon will become a self-fulfilling prophecy," Smith said.
On the campus of Pfeiffer University, an hour north of Charlotte, North Carolina, the jazz detectives are preparing to publish their findings -- and preparing for the controversy that will surely follow. Smith and Westbrook say there are a lot of jazz lovers out there who believe software is no match for human ears, and statistical analysis is no match for informed opinions.
"Probably 10, 20 years down the line, the procedure will be modified, and it will be perfected to much greater heights than [Westbrook] or I could ever imagine," Smith said. "But the ball has to begin somewhere."
