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The
Ekophon label was produced by the German Carl Lindström AG especially
for the Swedish market. The name was registered at the Swedish patent
office on July 6, 1920 and the first records issued the following
spring. There were to be 20 different catalogue number series for
various kinds of music, most of them in four number series prefixed NS.
The musical material used was mainly a mixture of German recordings
(during the label’s first years often recordings that had already been
issued on other labels such as German Artiphon and Beka, but also the
Swedish Harmonium label) and recordings by Swedish artists made in
Berlin as well as in Sweden. To complicate matters many of the German
recordings were issued under Swedish-sounding pseudonyms. For example
Swedish pianist/composer Gunnar Boberg’s name was used on dozens of
German studio band recordings with which he had absolutely nothing to
do! Until
1924 all records were pressed in Berlin and used the same matrix number
series as Beka. That year Ekophon took over the Swedish Skandia
label’s studio and pressing plant in Sundbyberg outside Stockholm,
from then on continuing Skandia’s matrix series. About the same time
Ekophon itself was transfered from Carl Lindström AG to the Swedish
branch of Odeon, who used Ekophon as its budget label until early 1927
when it was replaced by Parlophon. There
were six different label designs for the 10” records, the first five
of which were variations on the same basic motive: an elk among spruces
(see first picture). The 6th type is entirely different,
showing a picture of the royal palace in Stockholm (see second picture).
Besides this there were also two series of 6” children's records using
the same label design as the earlier Mignon label. To
the jazz and hot dance collector Ekophon is of interest for two reasons.
Locally they produced some of the very earliest attempts by a Swedish
band to play jazz, namely the April 1923 recordings by a band led by
pianist Sven Rüno. Amongst the musicians on this session was American-born
black banjo player Russell Jones. To
the international collector the NS 1500, 1600, 1700, 2500 and 2600
series are of particular interest. Thanks to Carl Lindström’s
connections with Okeh in the USA nearly 70 issues using masters from
that company were released on Ekophon. With the possible exception of
one coupling by The Tampa Blue Jazz Band (NS 1671) there is no pure jazz
among these titles but some fairly well known white dance bands such as
Vincent Lopez’, Ray Miller’s, Sam Lanin’s, Okeh’s studio band
directed by Milo Rega and various Green Brothers aggregations. The NS
1700 instrumental series also issued several Hawaiian tunes by artists
such as Anthony Franchini and Frank Ferera (see first picture). Mysteriously
enough there is also one single Ekophon record (NS 1689) which uses a
Gennett master on one side! References:
”Svenska akustiska grammofoninspelningar” by Karleric
Liliedahl (Stockholm 1987) |
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