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Rudy Van Gelder


the stranger

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Some comments about the pressing details were disputed by the following comments:

 

It's not an 'ear', it's a 'P' which stands for Plastylite, the pressing plant.? Also, 'RVG' and 'VAN GELDER' are not only stamped in the dead-wax of first pressings.

 

I don't know, but I thought you might. ;)

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The company I work for moved their corporate offices to Englewood Cliffs back in April. That place always sounded familiar and then I realized that's where "A Love Supreme" was recorded. I did a little more reading and learned about Mr. Van Gelder and his studio and who recorded there.

 

Next time I had a meeting in NJ, I left a little early and stopped by the studio and took a few pictures. I figured no one was there since it was 8AM and the lot was empty. After a minute or so a gruff voice came over the intercom and asked me who I was and told me to get lost. I like to think it was Van Gelder. So I left and went to my meeting.

 

Cool place.

 

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Weird. 8 in the morning. Wild. Maybe he'd been working all night or maybe he's semiretired now? I dunno.

 

Ah: from Wikipedia...

 

"...Van Gelder still remains active as a recording engineer. Since 1999, he has been busy remastering the analog Blue Note recordings he made several decades ago into 24-bit digital recordings in its ongoing RVG Edition series,[3] and also for a similar series of re-masters featuring some of the Prestige albums he recorded for its current owners, Concord Records.

Van Gelder still resides in Englewood Cliffs."

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Plus he could make you some new glasses while you were waiting for your album to be mixed!


There's a book by Francis Wolff,
The Blue Note Years
, that shows afew photos of the interiors of RVG's home studio, including the big wooden room.

 

 

So he lives there?? That would explain why he was there early. But it didn't look much like a home. It's also on a commercial strip.

 

I know that his studio in Hackensack (where he made his pre-1959 recordings) was in his parents' house. He convinced his father to build a control room in right in the living room. That's a cool dad!

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I was referring to the studio that you ID as being in his parents home (now, I think, his home). Before that, IIRC, he'd had a studio in a commercial building.

I wasn't aware of anything else...of course, my memory could be flawed.

 

At any rate, the photos & some of the commentary in the book I mentioned may be of interest; check them.

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