Rudy Van Gelder

Rudy Van Gelder started recording artists such as Miles Davis and Cannonball Adderley in the early 50s, in the comfort of his parent’s living room. It wasn't until 1959 that he opened his studio in Englewood Cliffs and along with Alfred Lion, changed the way Jazz was being recorded. In his six-decade career, it is estimated that he has recorded, mixed, and mastered over 2000 albums not only for Blue Note but Verve Records, Impulse!, CTI, and many others.

Blue Note Records founder Alfred Lion and Van Gelder first met when musician Gil Melle introduced them in 1953. Lion was impressed with the sonic clarity of Van Gelder's recordings, and he made sure that Van Gelder recorded most Blue Note sessions from 1953 to 1967. The signature “Blue Note Sound” is really a culmination of Lion's devotion to hard bop jazz, Van Gelder's meticulous pursuit of accurately capturing that improvisatory music, and the remarkable playing of the musicians on those early sessions at the Hackensack home studio. In his later career, Van Gelder operated from his state-of-the-art digital facility in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., where he worked with re-issue producer Michael Cuscuna on the RVG Series.

Van Gelder started recording musicians in his parent's living room in Hackensack as a hobby. Overwhelming demand from musicians and producers forced him to quit his day job as an optometrist and record music full-time. Before he started making his own records, Van Gelder simply wanted to re-create the audio experience of live music, his love for jazz and hearing it played back accurately led him to audiophile equipment stores.

“When I first started, I was interested in improving the quality of the playback equipment I had,” Van Gelder explains. “I never was really happy with what I heard. I always assumed the records made by the big companies sounded better than what I could reproduce. So that's how I got interested in the process. I acquired everything I could to play back audio: speakers, turntables, amplifiers.“When I started making records, there was no quality recording equipment available to me,” he continues. “I had to build my own mixer."

Van Gelder was also an enthusiastic supporter of digital audio and an avid learner of new gear and software. “I believe today's equipment is fantastic,” he says. “I wouldn't want to face a session without the editing capabilities of digital. There are still maintenance and reliability issues. Tech support helps. From my viewpoint, the essential difference between analog and digital is that analog does not like to be copied,” Van Gelder continues. “After the original is recorded, edited, and mixed, then what? You need a digital delivery medium. In that sense, the final product can be much higher quality than in the '70s.”

Despite his considerable reputation in the jazz world, Mr. Van Gelder deflects any credit for the sounds he has recorded over the decades. He says that praise should go to the musicians, and to the producers who hire and direct them.

In the final analysis of Rudy Van Gelder, he established the standard for sonic excellence on par with that of the many great and legendary musicians he recorded over the decades. He has certainly done that and it's a legacy that Blue Note is preserving. The label has established "The Rudy Van Gelder Series," which consists of more than 200 classic Blue Note albums remastered by him. And Blue Note recently released "Blue Note Perfect Takes," a collection of essential tracks that Mr. Van Gelder picked for their sonic and musical excellence; the collection also includes an interview with him on DVD.

Awards

• In 2013 Van Gelder received the Audio Engineering Society's Gold Medal

• In 2012 he received the Grammy Trustees Award

• In 2009 he was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts