Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. It was founded on January 15, 1889, evolving from the American Graphophone Company, the successor to the Volta Graphophone Company. Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in the recorded sound business, and the second major company to produce records. From 1961 to 1991, its recordings were released outside North America under the name CBS Records to avoid confusion with EMI's Columbia Graphophone Company. Columbia is one of Sony Music's four flagship record labels, alongside former longtime rival RCA Records, as well as Arista Records and Epic Records.
Black Swan Records was an U.S. jazz and blues record label founded in 1921 in Harlem, New York. It was the first widely distributed label to be owned, operated, and marketed to African Americans. Founded by Harry Pace with W.C. Handy, Black Swan Records was established to give African Americans more creative liberties. Eighteen months earlier in 1919, the Broome Special Phonograph Records was the earliest label owned and operated by African American George W. Broome in Medford, Massachusetts featuring Black classical musicians including Harry T. Burleigh and Edward Boatner. Black Swan was revived in the 1990s for CD reissues of its historic jazz and blues recordings.
Cameo Records was an American record label that flourished in the 1920s. It was owned by the Cameo Record Corporation in New York City.
Okeh Records is an American record label founded by the Otto Heinemann Phonograph Corporation, a phonograph supplier established in 1916, which branched out into phonograph records in 1918. The name was spelled "OkeH" from the initials of Otto K. E. Heinemann but later changed to "OKeh". Since 1965, Okeh was a subsidiary of Epic Records, a subsidiary of Sony Music. Today, OKeh is a jazz imprint, distributed by Sony Masterworks.
Columbia Graphophone Co. Ltd. was one of the earliest gramophone companies in the United Kingdom.
Acid jazz is a music genre that combines elements of funk, soul, and hip hop, as well as jazz and disco. Acid jazz originated in clubs in London during the 1980s with the rare groove movement and spread to the United States, Japan, Eastern Europe, and Brazil. Acts included The Brand New Heavies, D'Influence, Incognito, Us3, and Jamiroquai from the UK and Buckshot LeFonque and Digable Planets from the U.S. The rise of electronic club music in the middle to late 1990s led to a decline in interest, and in the twenty-first century, the movement became indistinct as a genre. Many acts that might have been defined as acid jazz are seen as jazz-funk, neo soul, or jazz rap.
Grey Gull Records was a record company and label founded in Boston, Massachusetts in 1919. The company was started by Theodore Lyman Shaw, a member of a wealthy and prominent family from Wellesley, Massachusetts whose ancestors included Civil War hero Robert Gould Shaw.
Oriole Records was an American record label founded in 1921 by McCrory's stores.
American Record Corporation (ARC), also referred to as American Record Company, American Recording Corporation, or ARC Records, was an American record company.
Bluebird Records is a record label best known for its low-cost releases, primarily of children's music, blues, jazz and swing in the 1930s and 1940s. It was founded in 1932 as a lower-priced subsidiary label of RCA Victor. Bluebird became known for what came to be known as the "Bluebird sound", which influenced rhythm and blues and early rock and roll. It is currently owned by parent company Sony Music Entertainment.
Odeon Records is a record label founded in 1903 by Max Straus and Heinrich Zuntz of the International Talking Machine Company in Berlin, Germany. The label's name and logo come from the Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe in Paris.
Chappelle is a surname of French origin, a variant of the word chapelle meaning "chapel". Notable people with the name include:
Ajax Records was a record company and label founded in 1921. Jazz and blues records were produced in New York City, with some in Montreal, and marketed via the Ajax Record Company of Chicago.
The United Hebrew Disc and Cylinder Company, sometimes abbreviated as UHD&C, was an American record label who made about 150 records of only Jewish-Hebrew nature beginning in 1904 with last known recording taking place in 1906.
The Rabbit's Foot Company, also known as the Rabbit('s) Foot Minstrels and colloquially as "The Foots", was a long-running minstrel and variety troupe that toured as a tent show in the American South between 1900 and the late 1950s. It was established by Pat Chappelle, an African-American entrepreneur in Tampa, Florida.
Black Vaudeville is a term that specifically describes Vaudeville-era African American entertainers and the milieus of dance, music, and theatrical performances they created. Spanning the years between the 1880s and early 1930s, these acts not only brought elements and influences unique to American black culture directly to African Americans but ultimately spread them beyond to both white American society and Europe.
Charles Ward Chappelle was an early 1900s African-American aviation pioneer and medal winner, electrical engineer, and businessman who was president of the USA's African Union Company, Inc., whose mission in the early 1900s was to create small, modernized African cities for blacks with leased land from the Gold Coast of West Africa. Several hundred thousand dollars in capital was raised during that time period for construction and modernization on the Gold Coast through the stock market, and infrastructure metal deals were made with companies such as U.S. Steel. In the beginning of Chappelle's business, he was reported to have made contracts with 82 tribal chiefs in Gold Coast, West Africa, for the exportation of gold, cocoa, rubber, and mahogany. The money was to be used to develop 440 miles with the African Central Railroad and the West Coast Steam and Harbor Company, both African-American and African joint ventures.
Patrick Henry Chappelle, was an American theatre owner and entrepreneur, who established and ran The Rabbit's Foot Company, a leading traveling vaudeville show in the first part of the twentieth century. He became known as one of the biggest employers of African Americans in the entertainment industry, with multiple tent traveling shows and partnerships in strings of theaters and saloons. Chappelle was described at that time as the "Pioneer of Negro Vaudeville" and "the black P. T. Barnum," and was the only African American to fully operate a traveling show solely composed of African-American entertainers.
Operaphone Records was a record company in existence from 1915 until 1921, who released numerous phonograph records cut in the hill-and-dale and universal-cut methods.
Juanita Stinnette Chappelle was a singer and vaudeville performer, as well as co-founder of Chappelle and Stinnette Records during the Harlem Renaissance era. Their record label was founded around 1921 and is considered the second record company owned and operated by African Americans. They produced 6 records, five of which they performed on.
