THE BLUES ALBUM from Mainspring Press CLICK COVER FOR DETAILS

2005 Blues Images
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John Tefteller's 2005 Blues Images Calendar & CD

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BLACK SWAN CATALOG

(January 1922)

Black Swan 1922 flyer - Front cover

Black Swan January 1922 flyer - pages 2 & 3

Black Swan January 1922 flyer - back cover

Mainspring Press Collection

This rare four-page flyer, issued by the Pace Phonograph Corporation in January 1922, clearly shows the musical diversity of the early Black Swan catalog.

Pace, however, had already broken his pledge that "Every singer and musician used is all our records is colored." Two issues in this list credited to Fletcher Henderson (2025 and 2034) are pseudonymous releases by white dance bands (Irving Weis & his Ritz-Carlton Orchestra and Lanin's Southern Serenaders, respectively), while "Joe Brown's Alabama Band" (2041) was actually Yerkes' Jazzarimba Orchestra, a white group that recorded widely for many labels. All of these masters were leased from white producer John Fletcher, who several months later would form a partnership with Harry Pace and take over production of the Black Swan label.

For more information on false names used on Black Swan, see White Performers on Black Swan Records in The Mainspring online journal.

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