April 14, 2023 First Black-Owned Record Company: Black Swan Records, 1921


Black Swan Records was the first Black-owned recording company that sold popular music to Black audiences. Black Swan Records specialized in jazz and blues recordings, but it also became the first company to record black classical musicians. During its brief existence from 1921 and 1923, Black Swan Records released over 180 records, a number that far surpassed any subsequent Black-owned record company until the 1950s.

Based in Harlem, New York, Black Swan Records was founded in 1921 as the record division of Pace Phonographic Corporation by Harry Pace, a music publisher and Atlanta University graduate. Pace named the division after African American opera singer Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield (1809-1976), known as “The Black Swan.” The label’s mission was to serve Black stockholders, employees, singers and musicians. The Black Swan Board of Directors included Dr. W.E.B. DuBois, Dr. Matthew V. Boutte, Dr. Godfrey Nurse, Dr. W.H. Willis, Truman K. Gibson, Viola Bibb, John P. Quander and John E. Nail.

Bandleader Fletcher Henderson worked as Black Swan’s recording director and composer while William Grant Still arranged and directed the music. After the release of Black Swan’s first recording in May 1921, songs such as Ethel Waters’s “Down Home Blues” quickly became successes. Pianist James P. Johnson recorded some of his first solos for the label. Don Redman, Gus and Bud Aikens, Garvin Bushell, Joe Smith, and Ralph Escudero, who all became prominent jazz musicians, played back-up on many of the label’s recordings. The Black Swan Troubadours, which included Henderson and Waters, toured the South to promote the label’s recordings.

In 1922, Pace made an economic arrangement with the white-owned Olympic Disc Record Corporation. Black Swan Records began to sell white bands but still advertised its dedication to exclusively record Black singers and musicians. Meanwhile, larger white-owned record companies began to dominate the market for Black artists and cut into the Black Swan’s business.  Pace and board member Nail’s public conflict with Marcus Garvey also may have contributed to the company’s decline. In spite of declining revenue, the label continued to record and market classical compositions, which did not sell as well as the label’s blues and jazz recordings.

In December of 1923, Black Swan Records declared bankruptcy, and Paramount bought the label’s catalog the following March. Still, the legacy of Black Swan Records is its groundbreaking discography and its success in forging an African American presence into the mainstream music business.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

March 2, 2023 Math & Science

Image
Influential Black Scientists From left to right: Gladys West, Charles Henry Turner, Alice Ball, Percy L. Julian, Sophia B. Jones, Elijah McCoy, Charles Lightfoot Roman. (U.S. Navy, Public domain, DePauw University Archives and Special Collections, Public domain, New York Public Library, Ben Shannon/CBC.) Innovators across disciplines who have made significant, enduring contributions to the world. From the first treatment for leprosy to the foundation of the global positioning system, Black scientists have long been involved in major scientific developments, despite being pushed to the margins, refused jobs, and denied credit for their discoveries.  Charles Henry Turner | Discovered animals can have complex thoughts Among Turner's many discoveries, he was the first to prove that insects have the capacity to hear, and that they can learn by trial and error.  He was one of the first African Americans to earn a PhD from the University of Chicago, and in 1892, was the first Black s...
Read more

June 7, 2023 Sharon Mosely Braun - 1st Black woman in the U.S. Senate

Image
Carol Moseley Braun, the first black woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate, was born in Chicago, Illinois on August 16, 1947. She attended the Chicago Public Schools and received a degree from the University of Illinois in 1969.  She earned her degree from the University of Chicago Law School in 1972. Moseley Braun served as assistant prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago from 1972 to 1978. In the latter year she was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives and served in that body for ten years. During her tenure Moseley Braun made educational reform a priority. She also became the first African American assistant majority leader in the history of the Illinois legislature.  Moseley Braun returned to Chicago in 1988 to serve as Cook County Recorder of Deeds. Capitalizing on the public furor over the Clarence Thomas–Anita Hill controversy and in particular the way in which Hill was treated by U.S. Senators, Carol Moseley Braun upset incumbent Senator Alan ...
Read more

March 6, 2023 Auto Designers

Image
Mckinley Thompson Jr.  (November 8, 1922 - March 8, 2006)  McKinley Thompson was the first African American automotive designer, and he was the first African American Designer to work at the Ford Motor Company. C.R. Patterson & Sons - the First Black Owned Car Company. By the late 19th century, the United States had been fully ushered into a period of dramatic industrial and economic growth commonly known as the Gilded Age. Some of the industry’s pioneers and gamechangers Every February, the United States celebrates African Americans’ contributions to society. Black History Month can be traced back to a week in 1926 when Black historians held the first organized commemoration. In the decades that followed, the Civil Rights Movement prompted huge strides in legal and cultural progress, and in 1976, President Gerald Ford made Black History Month official. At around the same time, Black professionals, including car designers, finally began to get some of the opportunities and...
Read more