The OLYMPIA record label was located in Brussels, Belgium and managed by Fernand Janssens (often sourced as F. Janssens). It was owned by Sobedi (Société Belge du Disque), which had its own recording studio and pressing plant. Sobedi was fully acquired by Fonior in 1969 and fused with two other companies (S.A. Fabeldis and Discopress) into “Sobelpress S.A.”.
This label was the parent label of the “teenager” Hey label.
It was active until the end 1970s.
THE OLDEST INDEPENDENT JAZZ LABEL IN EUROPE.
Named after the notorious New Orleans district where jazz was born, the label was launched in Copenhagen in 1952 by jazz fanatic Karl Emil Knudsen. Storyville originally sold imported American records but when the burgeoning post war jazz scene attracted the American jazz artists to tour in Europe and Scandinavia Knudsen seized every opportunity to record his jazz heroes for the label.
By late 2003 when Karl Emil Knudsen, the self-styled “Doctor of Jazz Archaeology”, passed away, his Storyville label was considered by the jazz cognoscenti to be the Scandinavian equivalent to America’s Blue Note Records. The Storyville archive includes recordings by Louis Armstrong, Ben Webster, Duke Ellington, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis and Benny Carter, to name but a few. Storyville Records was also instrumental in launching the career of some of the most influential Danish jazz artists including Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Fessor’s Big City Band and the legendary Papa Bues Viking Jazz Band.
In 2005 Editions Wilhelm Hansen, a Danish company with over 150 years in music publishing and part of the Music Sales Group acquired Storyville from Knudsen’s family. Anders Stefansen and Mona Granager, both long standing associates who worked with Knudsen to build the label, have stayed on with Storyville and will preserve the label’s unique identity.
As part of the Music Sales family of companies Storyville Records is ideally placed to bring its wealth of classic recordings to new generations of jazz fans through CD re-releases, special collectors’ CD edition of rare jazz recordings and digital downloads. We are sure that Karl Emil would be delighted to know that his label lives on within a fiercely independent music company that shares the same passion for great music.
Radioprom was a Bulgarian state-run label formed from Орфей, Балканъ, Микрофон and Арфа.
Active 1952 – 1962 (Company’s name changed to Балкантон)
German shellac label operating between 1936 and 1951.
The label was launched in March 1936 by Kristall Schallplatten GmbH.
Label owner:
Kristall-Schallplatten G.m.b.H.: 1936 and 1937
Carl Lindström A.-G.: August 1937 until 1951.
The club “Deutsche Buch-Gemeinschaft” was founded in 1924 in Berlin, Germany, focused on books. After WWII the club went to Darmstadt, Germany. In 1970 50% was sold to Bertelsmann AG, which acquired the rest in 1988.
4 in 1 (a British Homophone product) was a genuine attempt to give more value for money. The records do have 4 full-length tunes on every record, each side playing for at up to 6 minutes (some are longer!). The groove is fine and the quality is not bad considering the technical limitations. Each is a master recording and not dubbed from an existing “normal” 10″ record. All matrices are English, and mainly dance bands.
The catalogue ran from 1 to 91 and all date from 1932-34.
Sonora was a Swedish record company founded on November 5th, 1932 by Erik Ljungberg (1884-1958).
At first, Sonora didn’t have any Swedish recordings to release so their initial releases were reissues of the German record company Artiphon. From 1933 and forward, Sonora solely released Swedish recordings. Between 1933 and 1958 Sonora made approximately 9,000 recordings.
When the founder Erik Ljungberg died and the production of shellac 78s ceased, Sonora was purchased by Philips and became AB Philips-Sonora which later turned to Phonogram AB and then Polygram AB and now Universal Music Group.
There were also a Sonora branch in Norway that started releasing records in 1934, and a branch in Finland and one in USA.
Symfoni was a classic music record label from Sweden.
British label, which bought up most of the Piccadilly / Metropole companies’ metalwork in the early 1930s and reissued those. It also issued its own recordings – usually by second-tier or provincial bands.
The records on the Octacros label were made to be used in movie theaters as intermission music and at ice skating rinks; as the label states, they could be played in public by those who had a contract with Synchrophone. It was bought out by Decca in 1937.
The Danish company EKKO were part of the Schou/Tono labels.
It was founded by Vilhelm Andersen in Copenhagen and existed from 1938 to 1941. The label had a house recording band called the Ekko Danseorkester.
All records were pressed by “Helomit A/S” in Copenhagen.
