Vocalion

Vocalion Records
1921 Vocalion label
Founded	1916 (1916)
Founder	Aeolian Piano Company
Genre	Jazz
Country of origin	U.S., U.K.

Vocalion Records is an American record company and label active for many years in the U.S. and the U.K.

Vocalion (pronounced "vo-CAL-yun") was founded in 1916 by the Aeolian Piano Company of New York City, which introduced a retail line of phonographs at the same time. The name was derived from one of their corporate divisions, the Vocalion Organ Co. The fledgling label first issued single-sided, vertical-cut disc records but soon switched to double-sided and then, in 1920, switched to the more common lateral-cut system.

Aeolian pressed Vocalion discs in a good-quality reddish brown shellac, which set the product apart from the usual black shellac used by other record companies. Advertisements stated that "Vocalion Red Records are best" or "Red Records last longer". However, Vocalion's shellac was no more durable than good-quality black shellac. Vocalion red surfaces are less hardy than contemporaryVictor Records, but the audio fidelity and pressing quality of Vocalion records are well above average for the era and are among the best of the acoustic era.

In 1925 the label was acquired by Brunswick Records. During the 1920s Vocalion also began the celebrated 1000 race series (records recorded by and marketed to African Americans). The 15000 series continued, but after the Brunswick takeover, it seems that Vocalion took a back seat to the Brunswick label. From 1925 to 1927, quite a few Brunswick titles were also issued on Vocalion, and since the Vocalion issues are much harder to find, one can speculate that they were not available for sale in as many stores as their Brunswick counterparts. (It is not known if Brunswick dealers automatically sold Vocalion titles, or if Brunswick maintained a separate dealer network for exclusive Vocalion sales.) By 1928–1929, many of the records issued on the Vocalion 15000 series were hot jazz exclusive to Vocalion and are extremely rare and highly sought after.

In retrospect, it seems that Brunswick never really had a plan for the Vocalion 15000 series. From 1925 to 1930, Brunswick appeared to use this series as a specialty label for purposes other than general sale. This is assumed because of the relative rarity of the Vocalion popular series, the period of near-inactivity in this series in 1928, and the fact that some of the regular Brunswick releases were also put out for sale as Vocalions. This seems to also be a possible explanation as to why the early 1930s Vocalions are rarer than Brunswick records.