The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Does anyone know anything about Victor Scroll records from the 53000 series? On a whim, I picked up a record from this series with a Japanese label--mostly effaced. I didn't know what to expect when I played it, but it floored me. It begins with what sounds (to my untutored ear) like a simple Japanese melody on a few instruments and then develops a complex Latin rhythm with jazzy variations on the original melody. It's fantastic. (I'll try to post a recording.)

I'm eager to know who created the music. The UCSB archive had an entry on Japanese records (the 53000 series) and suggests that they stopped in the later 1930s. Their examples don't include my record.

Does anyone know where I could find more information?

For Japanese records I go here: http://78music.jp/victor.html

But they seem to not have your record either. The very next one on the list is a Mozart Violin Concerto in A major 1st movement 5th Music Competition Yukio Hatoyama playing violin and Washimi Goro on piano. Sounds nothing at all like you're describing!

Thank you! It's too bad that this record is missing, and that the text on the labels has been scratched off. My scattered reading so far suggests that jazz wasn't terribly popular with the Japanese regime in the 30s--and banned outright during the war. That might account for the defacement of the record label. I suppose it could also have happened on this side of the Pacific during the war. The record itself is in E- shape, and the sound is loud and clear.