I would like to make it clear that this posting reflects my personal
opinion; the contents are not intended to be inflammatory, insulting
or detrimental to anybody.

Mike Walter exhorts us to buy QRS rolls to ensure their continuing
survival.  I am a keen collector of hot,  jazzy piano rolls and have
yet to find anything new in the QRS catalog which is of interest to me.

In my view most of the later QRS arrangements (that is to say those
released over the last fifteen years or so) of music in my sphere of
interest are disappointingly dreary and unimaginative.  Apparently since
the time of the illustrious J. Lawrence Cook (who passed away in 1976)
no other QRS arranger has demonstrated such a complete grasp of the
hot piano idiom.  I'll make two notable exceptions to that observation:
George Bogatko and Jon Jensen, both of whom have had brilliant work
released by QRS.

Another QRS let-down is the standard of perforation, which is positively
dismal in comparison with the superb quality offered by Richard and
Janet Tonnesen.

I receive several auction lists but never bid on the later "red box"
QRS products and shall never purchase any of their new stock unless
they are the work of the aforementioned Bogatko or Jensen.  Some of the
modern QRS recuts of classic Waller and James P. Johnson rolls made in
the 1920s are not faithful to the originals, many of the recuts contain
glaring timing errors and stray notes.

As for the demise of the QRS old roll auction, Mike Walter was probably
correct when he said that a contributory factor was the scrapping of the
bid reduction system.  At the time several of my collector friends
complained bitterly about it to Dan Wilke, who explained that the
decision had been thrust upon him by his boss.

I didn't know and was sorry to learn that Dan had been laid off.
I always found him to be a courteous, helpful person.  My best wishes
for the future go with him.

John Farrell
stridepiano@email.msn.com