1. The new issue of the BAS Speaker has been published. It features John Atkinson of Stereophile.

2. Over the years I have accumulated quite a few open reel tapes. Also a couple people have given me their collections. I don’t play them anymore and keep thinking of downsizing and taking them to the dump. But procrastination rules. Then I happened to look on eBay and it turns out there is a thriving market in people buying such tapes. I put a few on eBay, sorted by tape type, and they were snapped up at $5 each for the 7” reels in batches of five. I ship by Media Mail, since they have recorded material on them, and it is cheap and zone independent. I tried a couple 10-1/2 “ reels for $12 and again they sold quickly. My master tape collection has been digitized so the temptation is to sell them too.

So always check before assuming something is worthless.

3. From John Marks: For quite some time, I have wanted to make a solo-piano recording; and for just about as long I have wanted to record Stephen T. Martorella. You might recall that about 10 years ago, I hosted a joint meeting of the Boston and Connecticut Audio Societies at the First Baptist Church in America in Providence, and Steve played the organ so people could record it. The recording venue was Mechanics Hall in Worcester MA. The Artist & Repertory thinking behind this project was to record Steve Martorella in 20th-century J.S. Bach solo-piano transcriptions, most of which were sourced from the under-appreciated collection A Bach Book for Harriet Cohen.

I have been paying for this out of my own pocket (but I hope to get a major label interested in it). All told, the recording session cost about $1000 an hour. And there have been cost over-runs. If any of you would like to help get this project edited and mastered, please consider this email as a Crowdfunding Appeal.

For more information contact johnnywehardly@gmail.com

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