Gennett Records

Please use this page to enter releases on the Gennett label. Please use as record company for releases that state this in smaller font near label bottoms.

Gennett was an American record label, founded in Richmond, Indiana, USA by the Starr Piano Company and was named after the latter's three most important managers, Harry, Fred, and Clarence Gennett. Its first records (which were vertically cut) were released in October 1917. These included three items by the pianist Earl Fuller. Laterally cut discs were released from mid-1919, among them a recording by the New Orleans Jazz Band. The company made its first forays into the 'race' market with material by white bands, and issued a long series of discs recorded in 1921 by (under the pseudonym ) and a more important sequence made in 1922–3 by the (as the ).

Sessions by a few vaudeville blues singers were organized, but extensive recording of race material did not begin until 1923, when King Oliver and Jelly Roll Morton both recorded for the label. These tracks formed the beginning of a series of recordings now held to be classics. Gennett never had a designated race series: instead, from 1924, it printed the relevant labels with