IMPERIAL Swing - Series: 1936 - 1939

The new re-founded LINDSTRÖM - label "IMPERIAL" made a SWING - SERIES edition that started in summer 1936. They pressed British and American masters with HOT JAZZ and SWEET MUSIC of black and white interpreters.

The former "DEUTSCHE CHRYSTALATE Co." in Berlin - Reinickendorf, Neue Koloniestraße, already had contracts for matrix exchanges with American "BANNER" und "PERFECT" - company. That is why on the normal "KRISTALL" - label of the late 20s and early 30s, besides German Dancebands like OSCAR JOOST und BERNARD ETTÉ some ADRIEN SCHUBERT und CAB CALLOWAY recordings got published.

Then the new elegant golden "IMPERIAL" - label appeared:
By matrix exchanges, on the sophisticated new label, the company was able to press from original "PERFECT" and "MELOTONE" and British "VOCALION" masters.

The "IMPERIAL" - catalog of 1939 still shows a part of the so called "INTERNATIONAL DANCE - ORCHESTRAS: SPECIAL - RECORDINGS".

The reason why this "SWING - SERIES" had to be stopped with new editiond in 1937 is NOT due to political reason, but has to do with copyright lecenses:

"IMPERIAL" - Swing - Series was partnered to British "VOCALION" Swing Series. In April 1937, "VOCALION" USA was taken over by "DECCA". All contracts made by "IMPERIAL" were not valuable any more. "DECCA" was represented by "BRUNSWICK / DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON" in Germany. Those labels made licesed pressings and were a much too huge concurrent to smaller "IMPERIAL / DEUTSCHE CRYSTALATE". In England, the new main company "DECCA" continued a so called "VOCALION" - Swing Series. Only in Germany, those masters were pressed by "BRUNSWICK".

A very strange double-issue happened in 1937:

"IMPERIAL´s" record no. 18015 (DON REDMAN "Too Bad" / "Bugle Call Rag") was recorded by "ARC" in New York on am September 30th, 1936. "DEUTSCHEN GRAMMOPHON" had the new rights on this master and pressed it as "BRUNSWICK" A.81104. At the same moment, the "IMPERIAL" pressing was sold due to the misunderstanding of new rights. "GRAMMOPHON" made a process against "IMPERIAL" who had to stop all new editing afterwards.

All records that have been edited before could still be sold. Even with the beginning of World War II, the cool extra writing "SWING - SERIE" was in use. In 1939, the design of "IMPERIAL" - labels got simplified: The sentence "THE KING OF RECORDS" disappeared, the format got much smaller. Those pressings remind a typical war years´ WILLY BERKING record.

Still there is the mystery why besides the 18000s - series that only were used for Swing Music, some records appeared on the regular 17000s label.They also have the announce "SWING - SERIE", some masters even were recorded by the same bands the same day. Another mystery is the fact that some of the 18000s records have no announce of "SWING - SERIE". Sometimes the artists were published in both ways. In our days, this should not be to solve any more...


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