Director of Bands/ Tech TV Music Research

In 2001, Shorter faculty member Tom Smith and his research partner Gary Westbrook received international attention for their discovery of the so called musical fingerprint, a technique that used sine wave technology, a t-test and gumshoe detective work to identify unknown performers on early recordings, where performers were either mislabled or ignored entirely. The research was of particular importance in the correct documentation of early jazz music of the 1920 and 1930s. The Smith/Westbrook contention was that all wind instrumentalists and vocalists maintained a signature recognizable imprint throughout their lives within a margin error of .05%. Within six months, the duo had demonstrated their techniques on National Public Radio's All Things Considered, Weekend Edition, Discovery Channel Canada, were featured in The Chronicle of Higher Education, and were awarded an Outstanding Contribution to Jazz Education Award by the International Association for Jazz Education. Still Smith/Westbrook was not without controversy, culminating in a legendary presentation at the Jazz Research Roundtable at the Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University. On the Thursday before Thanksgiving 2001, a contingent of New York based jazz researchers attempted to disrupt Smith's presentation as he sought to disprove their inaccuurate suppositions. The two North Carolina professors eventually prevailed, with the Village Voice calling the encounter "a certain greatest hit in jazz research."

This Tech TV broadcast first aired in early 2002.

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• Smith
• Westbrook
• jazz
• mystery
• recordings
• Bix
• Beiderbecke
• Shorter
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• Georgia