Johann Ferdinand "Johnny" Parth (11 January 1930 – 8 May 2025) was an Austrian record producer, club owner, musician and artist, who founded
Document Records
Document Records is an independent record label, founded in Austria and now based in Scotland, that specializes in reissuing vintage blues and jazz. The company has been recognised by The Blues Foundation, being honoured with a Keeping the Bl ...
, the leading
record label
"Big Three" music labels
A record label or record company is a brand or trademark of Sound recording and reproduction, music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a Music publisher, ...
in the reissue of early
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...
and
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...
recordings.
Life and career
Born in the
Ottakring
Ottakring () is the 16th Districts of Vienna, District in the city of Vienna, Austria (). It is located west of the central districts, north of Penzing (Vienna), Penzing and south of Hernals. Ottakring has some heavily populated urban areas with m ...
district of
Vienna
Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
, Parth grew up listening to traditional
Viennese folk music, but was attracted to jazz records played by friends who were active in the
Austrian resistance
The Austrian resistance was launched in response to the rise of the fascists across Europe and, more specifically, to the Anschluss in 1938 and resulting occupation of Austria by Germany.
An estimated 100,000 people were reported to have parti ...
movement in the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. After studying art he became a
portrait painter
Portrait painting is a Hierarchy of genres, genre in painting, where the intent is to represent a specific human subject. The term 'portrait painting' can also describe the actual painted portrait. Portraitists may create their work by commissio ...
and restorer of old paintings. He also started acquiring a library of old jazz and blues
78 rpm
A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English) or a vinyl record (for later varieties only) is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The g ...
records, and became keen to share them among fellow collectors and aficionados.
[ "The History of Document Records - Part 1", ''Document Records'']
Retrieved 20 September 2020
In the mid-1950s he started the Jazz Perspective
record label
"Big Three" music labels
A record label or record company is a brand or trademark of Sound recording and reproduction, music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a Music publisher, ...
, releasing short runs of
LPs with hand printed covers, as well as two box sets, one covering the history of jazz music and a second covering the history of blues music. He also became the owner of the Hot Club de Vienne (now the Jazz Land club), setting up a second record label under that name, and organised music parties on
riverboat
A riverboat is a watercraft designed for inland navigation on lakes, rivers, and artificial waterways. They are generally equipped and outfitted as work boats in one of the carrying trades, for freight or people transport, including luxury ...
s on the
Danube
The Danube ( ; see also #Names and etymology, other names) is the List of rivers of Europe#Longest rivers, second-longest river in Europe, after the Volga in Russia. It flows through Central and Southeastern Europe, from the Black Forest sou ...
. He played the
cornet
The cornet (, ) is a brass instrument similar to the trumpet but distinguished from it by its conical bore, more compact shape, and mellower tone quality. The most common cornet is a transposing instrument in B. There is also a soprano cor ...
and led the Blue Danube Jass Band, and organised the first Catholic "jazz
mass
Mass is an Intrinsic and extrinsic properties, intrinsic property of a physical body, body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the physical quantity, quantity of matter in a body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physi ...
" in Europe, as well as leading the Alpha and Omega Brass Band Vienna, which played on
left wing
Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy either as a whole or of certain social hierarchies. Left-wing politic ...
marches.
[
Working with his then-wife Evelyn Hruby (1941–2016), and inspired by discussions with ]Chris Strachwitz
Christian Alexander Maria Graf Strachwitz von Groß-Zauche und Camminetz (; July 1, 1931 – May 5, 2023) was a German-born American record label executive and record producer. He was the founder and president of Arhoolie Records, which he esta ...
of Arhoolie Records
Arhoolie Records is an American small independent record label that was run by Chris Strachwitz and is based in El Cerrito, California, United States (it is actually located in Richmond Annex but has an El Cerrito postal address.) The label was ...
, he co-founded the Roots label. This initially recorded and issued albums of traditional Austrian music, but soon concentrated on reissues of vintage blues recordings by such musicians as Blind Lemon Jefferson
Lemon Henry "Blind Lemon" Jefferson (September 24, 1893 – December 19, 1929) was an American blues and gospel singer-songwriter and musician. He was one of the most popular and successful blues singers of the 1920s and has been called the "Fat ...
as well as compilations. Working with record collectors and music historians from around the world, the Roots label released about 60 LPs before folding in the 1970s.[
Parth continued to work as an artist. He returned to music production in the late 1970s, when he produced recordings of Austrian folk music by Heini Griuc and others for the Earl Archives label. In the mid-1980s he began to consider the possibility of producing albums that compiled, in chronological order, the complete recorded works of pre-war musicians, particularly blues and ]gospel
Gospel originally meant the Christianity, Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the second century Anno domino, AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message w ...
singers, but excluding those whose recordings had already been reissued by other labels. After finding a record pressing plant
Pressing may refer to:
*Pressing (association football), a defensive tactic
*Pressing (execution), a method of killing by crushing
*Pressing (metalworking), also known as stamping, a manufacturing process
*Pressing (wine), the extraction of juice ...
in Budapest
Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...
who were prepared to produce low quantities of LPs at a reasonable cost, he set up Document Records
Document Records is an independent record label, founded in Austria and now based in Scotland, that specializes in reissuing vintage blues and jazz. The company has been recognised by The Blues Foundation, being honoured with a Keeping the Bl ...
in 1985, initially releasing records on vinyl before turning to CD production. Under Parth's supervision, Document's output became prolific, achieving its goal of re-issuing comprehensive sets of recordings of many early blues performers, and was also critically acclaimed.[ Biography by Jason Ankeny, ''Allmusic.com'']
Retrieved 20 September 2020
He sold Document Records to a Scottish couple, Gary and Gillian Atkinson, in 2000. In the following year, 2001, Parth won the Keeping The Blues Alive Award from the Blues Foundation
The Blues Foundation is an American nonprofit corporation, headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, that is affiliated with more than 175 blues organizations from various parts of the world.
Founded in 1980, a 25-person board of directors governs t ...
.
Parth died on 8 May 2025, at the age of 95.Johnny Parth
musik-austria.at (in German). Retrieved 29 May 2025.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Parth, Johnny
1930 births
2025 deaths
Austrian record producers
Blues record producers
Musicians from Vienna