Some of the greatest American music of the 20th century was recorded in the 1920s and '30s by the likes of King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton and Bix Beiderbecke. Trouble is, the 78 r.p.m.s they left behind give only a scratchy approximation of what their bands sounded like. Much of this classic material was reissued on LPs, but the technology used to reduce the surface noise often left the instruments sounding dead and flat. Now the advent of the CD has spawned another prodigious outpouring of reissues. And finally someone has had the time, affection and sheer wizardry to bring this great music alive for the hi-fi era: Australian sound engineer Robert Parker.
Parker's Jazz Classics in Digital Stereo series, produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corp. (ABC) and now widely available in U.S. record stores for the first time, is a miracle of sound restoration. Starting with mint- condition 78s (his collection numbers more than 20,000), Parker applies a variety of noise-suppression, equalization and enhancement techniques to produce a digital stereo re-creation.
The result is a three-dimensional sound image with much of the presence, depth and dynamics of a live band. Trumpets bite, cymbals sizzle, bass strings snap and ring. Like an art restorer who scrapes off centuries' worth of grime to reveal the vibrant colors of the original, Parker makes it possible to hear the music as it must have sounded in New Orleans dance halls and Harlem ballrooms 60 years ago.
The son of an Australian electrical engineer, Parker began collecting old 78s at age 12 and soon started experimenting with various speakers, amplifiers and filters to improve on their sound. He perfected his method over three decades. When he went public with some of his stereo re-creations on Australian radio in 1982, the audience response was so enthusiastic that abc offered him a regular radio show and began producing his albums. Parker continued the series after moving to England in 1990 and has so far turned out some 60 albums, 26 of which have been rereleased in the U.S. through DRG Records.
Sitting in his studio in Devon, Parker, 55, speaks passionately about his work. "It's really miraculous when you think about it," he says, taking a shiny black record from its jacket. "These little shellac disks are like time capsules." He marvels at the amount of sonic information that was originally captured on the old records -- far more than the primitive playback techniques of the time were able to reproduce.
Parker is not aiming at archival preservation. In fact, some jazz purists fault him for taking liberties with the original material. Parker shrugs off the charge. "There's this romantic notion that cracks and surface noise are part of the charm of the old 78s. Not for me." And certainly not for the vast majority of the listening public -- particularly younger music fans -- who have grown used to CDs and sophisticated sound equipment. "Here's this amazing American cultural heritage locked in an antique technology," says Parker, "and that's a barrier to a younger generation that might find much value, interest and excitement in this music. My goal is to break down that barrier."