“Record companies such as Okeh, Paramount, Vocalion, and Columbia soon began to market special labels of “race records” — music by and for an African-American audience…. This new genre of recordings allowed many African Americans artists to reach a national audience for the first time. “There’s 14 million Negroes in our great country and they will buy records if recorded by one of their own,” said the pioneering black record producer Perry Bradford in 1920, “because we are the only folks that can sing and interpret hot jazz songs just off the griddle.”

Harry Pace established the first black owned record company, called Black Swan, whose pointedly ironic slogan was “The Only Genuine Colored Records — Others Are Only Passing for Colored.” Sales of race records soon reached five million copies a year.

A large segment of race records were marketed directly to an African-American audience, and soon became part of the black community’s culture. The Chicago Defender encouraged “lovers of music everywhere and those who desire to help in the advance of the Race” to purchase these records. Listening to and enjoying these recordings not only unified the listener with the artist, but also with African-Americans in other communities across the country, giving them a voice and a place within the chaos of urban life.

http://www.centerstage.org/marainey/Digital-Dramaturgy/The-Blues/Race-Records.aspx

http://www.pbs.org/jazz/exchange/exchange_race_records.htm

http://jazzlives.wordpress.com/2010/01/09/race-records/

Der Dandy
Mit einem phantastischen Lichtstrahl
Erleuchtet der Mond die krystallnen Flacons
Auf dem schwarzen, hochheiligen Waschtisch
Des schweigenden Dandys von Bergamo.

In tönender, bronzener Schale
Lacht hell die Fontaine, metallischen Klangs.
Mit einem phantastischen Lichtstrahl
Erleuchtet der Mond die krystallnen Flacons.

Pierrot mit dem wächsernen Antlitz
Steht sinnend und denkt: wie er heute sich schminkt?
Fort schiebt er das Rot und das Orients Grün
Und bemalt sein Gesicht in erhabenem Stil
Mit einem phantastischen Mondstrahl.

The dandy
With a ghostly light ray
The moon illumines the crystal flasks
Upon the dark altar-the holy Washbasin
Of the taciturn Dandy from Bergamo.

In the resonant bronze basin
The fountains laugh a metallic clangor.
With a ghostly light ray
The moon illumines the crystal flasks.

Pierrot with waxen complexion
Stands deep in thought: What makeup for today?
He shoves aside the red and oriental green
And paints his face in sublime style
With a ghostly light ray.

Text: original French by Albert Giraud (1860-1929), translated into German by Otto Erich Hartleben. English translation by Mimmi Fulmer and Ric Merritt

Second City takes it to the nth degree

http://library.umkc.edu/spec-col/local627/text/introduction/index.htm