[Dixielandjazz] Blue Steele Blues

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

I listened to the Amazon mp3 clips of Nat Schilkret, or Nathaniel Shilkret and his orchestra, which I could compare with one or too odd things on 78. 


Judging from the amazon samples the reissues are of the old topless sort which was aimed at avoiding the irritation some people experienced hearing surface noise, treating the jazz as the pop music of an earlier day.  


A friend of mine now approaching his ninetieth birthday developed an instant aversion to vinyl reissues in the early 1950s on account of this approach. I've heard the same effect only worse on a cassette deck with an astonishingly stifling Dolby, which happily could be turned off.  That was a long time ago, pre-CD, and I'd taped some items from a then state of the art EMI vinyl reissue.  
To members of a generation senior to some members of this list, and happy enough to listen to early jazz and other 1920s music of just a light pop sort, not jazz fans, surface noise was an irritant and the losses not necessarily noted.  Given the review of the Blue Steele as including rather a lot of music on the more sentimental side, I don't see the need to go in for metaphors.  The idea seems to have been that surface noise is more irritating than loss of original signal.  If the stifler had been sufficiently thorough in doing the wrong things, there would be losses of volume now and then as more top went in the course of killing hiss -- definitely not following priorities I share or would encourage. 

Also, if you know what the music should sound like you may not appreciate how deaf some people, including professional sound engineers (I have heard complaints off list about this) can be to volume adjustments, often subtle to dials and ignorant hearers. 
Of course a friend of mine used to do  various filtering things, but the wax he was concerned with at the time was in the ears he examined as a medical specialist. He made simulations of the symptoms of hearing difficulties and tinnitus.

Robert R. Calder