Hello, all!  An item has been posted recently on Mike Medding's
reliably fascinating and fully-documented web site, that should
be of interest to MMD readers:

  http://www.doctorjazz.co.uk/page11.html#cd4june21

In June 1921, the songwriter and impresario Perry Bradford
advertised a series of five piano rolls of tunes (written by him,
naturally) in the black press (Chicago Defender and New York Age),
arranged by J. Lawrence Cook.  These are tunes that Mamie Smith
had recorded on phonograph records, and Bradford was plugging them
relentlessly, as was his wont.  An article by Mike Montgomery about
these advertisements appeared in the AMICA Bulletin (April 1980).

The question arises whether any of these five rolls or any product
of the "Bradford Song Roll Company" has ever been seen by any
collector.  Or are they the early 1920s equivalent of "vaporware"
(software advertised by a company that never actually materializes)?

Certainly, sheet music collectors are all too familiar with the same
phenomenon: a sheet by some composer lists some titles as also having
been published that never appear in any form (or, most tellingly,
never appear in the Catalog of Copyright Entries).  Does anybody have
anything to add about the "Bradford Song Roll Company"?

Best regards,
Bob Pinsker
San Diego, Calif.