In the earliest days of the gramophone industry, the small handful of major players producing and distributing records were greatly concerned with maintaining their market share, keeping their technical practices secret, and expanding their recordable horizons. In Europe, the rapid establishment of the Favorite label in 1904 must have seemed like a shot across the bow. Based in Hanover, where the Gramophone Company had their pressing plant and a thriving office, Favorite began by pilfering an engineer, Otto Birkhahn, from that company, giving him more than double his normal salary. This was no joke; there were only a small number of people on the planet familiar with this newfangled technology in 1904. Within a short period, Favorite had also acquired a disgruntled engineer from the Beka label, Willy Bielefeld, who had previously offered his comparatively inexpensive services to the Gramophone Company but was summarily rebuffed. Not only that, but Favorite also managed to abscond with Carl Dietsch, a leading employee of the German branch of the Gramophone Company. By 1905, this budding label was issuing new double-sided records and the race was on.
Favorite would thrive for the next nine years. Naturally, they were competitive in their repertoire of European popular and classical musics – they had to be, to survive. But – and here is the catch for Excavated Shellac readers – as early as 1905, they were also recording in Cairo. They recorded in Turkey that same year and returned multiple times. They recorded a session in Bangkok, at least one session in China, multiple sessions in Brazil, Argentina, and even recorded in two locations in Ecuador (with records released under a sub-label, Precioso), probably the first commercial label to do so. They had 40 record presses at their factory in 1908 and had expanded their plant again in 1911. The following year, they were offering 25,000 titles.
But, the German record industry found itself in tumult during the run-up to World War I. By late 1913, what was left of Favorite moved to Berlin, and the company soon liquidated. The Carl Lindström AG concern, a gramophone producer who had only recently gotten into the disc business with their Parlophon label, effectively usurped Favorite, as it had with the Lyrophon, Beka, Odeon, and Dacapo labels. Lindström would continue marketing the Favorite label after the War, reissuing their material, until about 1926. They also loaned some Favorite masters to Columbia Records in the United States, notably their Turkish and Greek material.
This particular track was recorded 109 years ago, in mid-1911, during a session in Belgrade by Favorite recording engineer Wilhelm Winkel. The artist, Danilo Daniel Katalan, was born in 1880 and specialized in humorous folk songs such as the bećarac and the svatovac, as well as uptempo dance tunes such as this, “Poskočica”: literally a “jumping song” for dancing, stemming from the word poskočiti, which means to jump up and down. Katalan recorded under the name “Danilo Katalanić,” as well as “D. Katalanović,” and also the pseudonym “Mirko Katić” when he recorded for the Gramophone Company in 1910. He’s accompanied by the Romani orchestra led by Jova Jare (literally “Jove the goat”; likely a nickname).
Sadly, Katalan, a Sephardic Jew, was murdered at the Topovske Šupe concentration camp in 1941, located outside of Belgrade on a former military base. The camp was in existence for only a few months. It was the site of the murders of approximately 4,300 people during that short time. A terrible tragedy to consider set against the sheer joy of this early track.
Danilo Katalanić with Jove Jareta – Poskočica
(Favorite 1-107031; matrix 5076-t)
Sources
Lotz, Rainer E. with Michael Gunrem and Stephan Puille. Das Bilderlexikon der Deutschen Schellack-Schallplatten. 5 vols. Holste: Bear Family, 2019.
Lotz, Rainer E. “On the History of Lindström AG.” In The Lindström Project, Contributions to the history of the record industry / Beiträge zur Geschichte der Schallplattenindustrie, Vol.1, edited by Pekka Gronow and Christiane Hofer, 11-20. Vienna: Gesellschaft für Historische Tonträger, 2009.
Strötbaum, Hugo. “Favorite Revisited: An Update.” Recording Pioneers. http://www.recordingpioneers.com/docs/FAVORITE_REVISITED.pdf (accessed 25 September 2020).
Strötbaum, Hugo. “Favorite: the story of an independent German record company (1904-1914).” In The Lindström Project. Contributions to the history of the record industry / Beiträge zur Geschichte der Schallplattenindustrie, Vol. 2, edited by Pekka Gronow and Christiane Hofer, 121-136. Vienna: Gesellschaft für Historische Tonträger, 2010.
Big thanks to Nikola Zekić and Will Hancock.
Excavated Shellac 
“A terrible tragedy to consider set against the sheer joy of this early track.”
That says it all, so I’ll add nothing, except to say thanks. It’s a privilege to get to hear it.
Much appreciated, Ray, as always! Thanks for keepin’ the faith.
The voice of a man, taken from us by an evil ideology, it’s propagators and collaborationists…
Through his records, he will live forever.
My friend, dr. Dragoljub Pokrajac has managed to discover Jova Jare’s surname, by discovering a picture of his daughter in law, married to his son, in a book about Gypsies in the town of Niš. Apparently, Jova’s surname was Jašarević “Yasharevich”. He was not related to the renowned Roma violinist Miodrag Jašarević, who was from Kruševac.
The claim that Topovska Šupa Concentration Camp was run by the quisling Nedić regime is incorrect. First of all Topovska Šupa began “working” on August 20th, whilst Milan Nedić accepted the role of leader of the “government of salvation” later that month (Nedićs Serbia).
Jews, Romani and Serbs had already been targeted by the Germans for months prior to the opening of Topovska Šupa, and following its closure the remaining survivors were sent to either the German run Banjica Concentration Camp on Banjica (a suburb of Belgrade), or across the Sava River to the Šajmišta Concentration Camp in the Belgrade suburb of Zemun–which was now apart of the newly formed Independant State of Croatia.
Belgrade was the only European capital where the Germans opened/operated Concentration Camps. Infact they opened two, and neither were was run by Nedić’s quisling government. Banjica was run by the Germans and operated just as all their other camps did in occupied Europe, whilst Šajmište was apart of the Croat-Ustaša run Jasenovac complex of Concentration Camps which operated all along the Sava River to the border of “Occupied Serbia”.
Claiming that the Serbs ran the Topovska Šupa and Banjica concentration camps (where they were the largest victims) is akin to claiming that the Poles ran the Auschwitz and Treblinka Concentration Camps, or that the Jews ran the Warsaw Ghetto.
Good! Thank you – this information was given to me by a Serbian researcher – but you’re point is well taken and I’ve amended it.
While your claims are mostly accurate, there are several inaccuracies in them. Topovske Šupe were operated by Germans, but Nedić’s regime aided them in everything, because they were, of course, a quisling government. No Jews were saved owing to any intervention by Nedić, unlike, say, the Bulgarians, who managed to save their own Jews, while cheerfully aiding the Germans in murdering the Jews in the territories which they occupied (such as Monastir (Bitola), etc.) Also, while Belgrade did have multiple German-run camps, other European capitals (such as Paris and Prague) also had German-run detention and transit camps during the occupation. Furthermore, you say that the Serbs represent the largest number of victims at Topovske Šupe and Banjica, which is incorrect. At Topovske Šupe, the primary victims were Jewish men. Your analogy also is problematic. While the camps in Serbia were German-run, local collaboration (including police and administrative support) did occur, similar to other occupied territories. The analogy oversimplifies the complex roles of local authorities and the nature of collaboration and victimization in Nazi-occupied Europe[#. Not to mention, and this is the most ridiculous one, you misspelled SAJMIŠTE as ŠAJMIŠTA. I mean, if you wish to talk about something, at least write the name properly.