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Rudy Van Gelder: Genius or just lucky?

Like any serious jazz fan, I have a lot of music produced by the "legendary" Rudy Van Gelder in that studio in Hackensack NJ during the fifties and sixties. I've always thought they were kind of thin sounding and sometimes even tinny, with poor bass and flat dynamics. As I go deeper into the era I keep finding recordings – both live and from other studios - that really blow away a lot of the RVG studio stuff. For example, yesterday I was listening to Monk's 'Live at the Blackhawk' , which is a great natural recording with the instruments sounding both lifelike and life-size, with good bass. It was recorded in 1960 live in a club, and sounds - to my ears - 100% better than the contemporary studio recordings (Monk's Music, Brilliant Corners, etc). The live recording also doesn't have any of the studio baffling that was so fashionable on early stereo recordings, that makes instruments sound isolated from each other rather than part of a unified soundstage (And RVG is certainly not the only engineer guilty of this. Has anyone really ever heard a drum kit where every piece was stacked vertically?). Although this is a Riverside release it was not engineered by RVG. It seems that there was some very good recording technology at the time that was not being utilized in RVG's studio, or the acoustics were funny - I don't know.

This isn't, of course, limited to Monk recordings. That just happens to be the example I was listening to yesterday. I find this to be the case with most RVG dates.

You can't ignore the importance of the RVG records simply because of who and what he recorded, and he recorded the best, but I've seen a lot of articles offering accolades for his productions that just seem overblown. I think a lot of those records- great music or not - sound really mediocre.

Any other opinions out there?
grimace
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aldavis
202 posts
 
I mostly agree. I've got tons of RVG remasters but many of the best recordings are not from RVG. To me the saxophone (trane etc.) tends to be too " in your face" and piano is typicaly under miked. OTOH cymbals and Miles muted trumpet is usually pretty good. As a whole they do seem a little flat and thin. For comparison check out Miles' "Someday my prince will come" where it's all outstanding. I think RVG does a good job but his great success is being in the right place at the right time with fantastic musicians. JMHO - Jim
qdrone
1,041 posts
 
All I can say is that when Blue Note started selling their catalog on Cd any RVG first generation recording in digital lacked the spit and hiss of early CD's. I prefer to believe it was because most of the recordings lacked vocals which early in this medium was where digital gave up the ghost. In classical music the violins is where digital gave up the ghost in early cd recordings.For the life of me I enjoy the RVG remasters but then the Riverside recording are quite, good some are even outstanding.
hedgehog's avatar
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hedgehog
185 posts
 
I read somewhere that some of the early recordings were made in his NY apartment...shared it with his mother and/or grandmother, if I recall correctly. I very much prefer the LP version of the RVG recordings. What a stable of artists he was fortunate enough to witness/record. The overall quality is inconsistent, but it may have been due to circumstances beyond his direct control.

There was a great article on a recording engineer by the name of Roy DuNann in Stereophool a few years back. Check out a the quality of a few of his recordings...Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section, Sonny Rollins-Way Out West, Sonny Rollins and The Contemporary Leaders. The article/interview is an interesting read. I would like to hear a "DuNann" version of many of my favorite Blue Note recordings...
foster_9
1,638 posts
 
Grimace: Simply an outstanding thread! The RVG remasters bug me no end for their lean sometimes tinny quality. But, if your're not a vinyl person and seriously into jazz, your're stuck with buying many of the classic performances only available on Blue Note via Van Gelder. I resist doing this sometimes because I dislike the recordings so much. There is no escaping though if you want to have many of these classics on disc. I recently recieved "Ready for Freddie" by Freddie Hubbard as a gift. It's a Blue Note RVG and not too bad of a recording, actually better than some of the RVG's I have. Example, the excellent "Go" by Dexter Gordon on RVG is another lean recording that was disappointing. I'm still trying to find classic well done jazz remasters. Columbia/Sony is doing an excellent job with Miles.
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