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The Matador
label was owned and sold by the Swedish mail order firm Åhlén &
Holm in Insjön (later to turn into Åhléns, a still existing
nationwide chain of department stores). The label was produced during
two separate periods using recordings from different sources. During
1913-17 Matador issued recordings from German Beka. These included a
wide variety of music typical of the period: vocal solos, male quartets,
military bands playing dance numbers, accordeon solos, religious songs
and so on, recorded by Beka locally in Sweden as well as in Berlin. The
label design was very similar to Beka’s and Matador also used the same
matrix/catalogue numbers as Beka. In 1923-24
the label was revived. Apparently Åhlén & Holm had by then
bought the assets of the short-lived Swedish Stadion label, and all of
the later Matadors (only some 80 issues) are reissues of Stadion
recordings from 1922 (the only year that label existed), only adding the
number 1 before the Stadion catalogue numbers. The music is mainly
Swedish dance music of a rustic nature and some solo vocals, but there
are also a few issues by the so called ”Stadion
Jazz Band”. The actual ”jazz” content of these is probably
less than modest though, most of the titles being waltzes! The first
Matadors sold at 0.85 Swedish kronor. By 1917 the price was up to 1.85,
but this was still much cheaper than ”ordinary” records in the Åhlén
& Holm catalogue, who sold at 3.00. The 1923-24 Matadors however
cost 4,00 kronor, which was almost a full workday’s salary for an
industrial worker at the time. References: Label scan from record in the collection of Fredrik Tersmeden, Lund, Sweden, eho also provided the above narrative about this label. © April 2003 |
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