Michael Fitzgerald

J. Greg Phelan - doesn't ring a bell with me. Typically the NJ section has its own group of writers who get stuff in there but not the "regular" NYT. Now on the website: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/22/nyregion/22njJAZZ.html Unfortunately only two phohtos there - typical Miles and a modern-day RVG. The paper has Max, Benson, Dexter, Coltrane, and Herbie in addition. =========================================== May 22, 2005 He Helped Put the Blue in Blue Note By J. GREG PHELAN ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS It is one of the cathedrals of jazz, Rudy Van Gelder's studio here, a sacred acoustic space where some of the music's giants and near giants have done their finest work: Sonny Rollins and Horace Silver, Art Blakey and Herbie Hancock, Antonio Carlos Jobim and George Benson and hundreds of others. "I try not to think about who else has recorded there," Wayne Escoffery, the tenor saxophonist in Ben Riley's Monk Legacy Septet, said after a recent session. "But there was one time, I was recording 'Dedicated to You' with Gloria Cooper, and I started thinking about John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman recording that song at Rudy's. I felt like Coltrane was watching over me as I played my solo, and it was a little intimidating." The studio even feels like a rustic chapel, its 39-foot-high cedar ceiling held up by arches of laminated Douglas fir. The space is as timeless and pristine as the music that has been captured here by Mr. Van Gelder, whom many jazz fans consider the greatest recording engineer ever. He opened it in 1959, after spending most of the 1950's recording people like Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis and Cannonball Adderley in his parents' living room in Hackensack and refining the sound of recorded jazz working with Alfred Lion of Blue Note Records and other producers. But Mr. Van Gelder isn't inclined to look backward. He has not succumbed to the deification of fans, and his workplace is not yet ready to become a mere shrine. Mr. Van Gelder, who declined to give his age, still excels at his trade and makes sure that his studio remains world class. 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. "I'm an engineer, not a producer," he said with characteristic precision during a recent interview in his studio here. "I'm the person who makes the recording process work. I built the studio, I created the environment in which they play, I selected, installed and operate the equipment. An analogy might be, someone wanted to put a man on the moon, but it was an engineer who got him there. "My goal is to make the musicians sound the way they want to be heard." He has certainly done that. And it's a legacy that Blue Note is preserving. The company 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. Since he began working professionally in the early 1950's, Mr. Van Gelder has recorded, mixed and mastered more than 2,100 albums, according to the All Music Guide to Jazz (there are 67 releases listed for Coltrane alone). Besides Blue Note, other major labels he has worked for include Prestige, Savoy, Verve, Impulse and CTI. Don Sickler, the producer and trumpet player for Ben Riley's Monk Legacy Septet, has worked with Mr. Van Gelder since the 1970's. He said that he believes an essential ingredient in Mr. Van Gelder's success is his ability to seize on the individual sound of each player in his studio: "Freddie Hubbard said it, and I'll say it, too. When you record at Rudy's, you get your sound, not a quote unquote trumpet sound." To Mr. Escoffery, a lot of that has to do with Mr. Van Gelder's deep musical knowledge, which spans most of the 20th century. "Rudy knows where I'm coming from based on his long experience with tenor saxophones," he said. "He's recorded most of the major innovators of the tenor, if not all of them." With his extraordinary ear and problem-solving ability, Mr. Van Gelder has spent five decades pioneering the use of technology to capture the wide range of jazz instruments, from the delicate tone of Miles Davis's mute trumpet to the hard attack of Jimmy Smith's Hammond organ. From the early days, when he had to build all his own equipment, to the advent of digital recording, he has embraced any technical advance that helps him achieve the best sound possible. One recent example is a 2004 SurroundSound recording he did for the bassist Buster Williams called "Griot Liberté." And when he's resurrecting some of his old work, he uses a vast array of analog equipment to carry the recordings into the digital age. For just one set of CD's in "The Van Gelder Series," he used turntables, cartridges and electronics designed for recordings of that time to transfer the originals from 16-inch lacquer master disks to digital media. But it's not always easy to maintain equipment that is no longer supported by defunct companies. When a reel-to-reel master recorder that Mr. Van Gelder uses for playback failed a few months ago, he had to call on a friend who is an aerospace engineer. "Watching how his mind worked was a beautiful thing to see," he said. "There were two of us in the control room. He tuned me out and started leafing through the two-and-a-half-inch-thick manual, talking softly to himself, analyzing the schematics, page after page, and finally isolated the problem as a shorted diode. Keeping analog equipment working is becoming a very shaky thing." Mr. Van Gelder clearly meets the ongoing challenge to not only remain modern, but also to maintain a constant state of readiness to capture the spontaneity of a performance, a spontaneity that is essential to jazz. When Ben Riley's septet played a sample of the next song for him, he quickly rechecked the recording levels, careful not to let them rehearse too long. "It sounds great, don't waste it," he declared, providing another track number before he captured the band's performance of Thelonious Monk's "Epistrophy." After each take, the producer, Mr. Sickler, relied on Mr. Van Gelder to swiftly play back specific sections of the performance so the septet could make any necessary adjustments: "to fix the note coming into the bridge" or "punch up the horns on the last three bars," providing ample evidence of what Mr. Van Gelder describes as his ability to understand what the musicians are trying to do in real time. The recording isn't finished when the session is complete: working with the producer, the tracks must be sequenced, and levels and other parameters adjusted to achieve the final mix and perform the mastering. Unlike most recordings made today, in which different engineering tasks are farmed out to different people, Mr. Van Gelder performs every stage himself. "I don't do a session without the understanding that I will do all the steps, the original recording, the mixing and the mastering," he said. "To have each of those steps done by different people, sometimes dozens, in my opinion - and this applies only to acoustic jazz - imposes an impenetrable wall between the musicians and the final result." Sitting behind the console at the session, Mr. Van Gelder may not wear the white gloves that at least one mistaken critic claimed, but he clearly is a perfectionist. Even so, there is also evidence of the pleasure of an eminently competent man doing exactly what he wants to do. After the third and best take of "Epistrophy," the musicians directed their satisfied glances toward the control room, only to hear the most famous recording engineer in jazz history ask dryly, "Are you ready to record it now?" ===================================== Mike

I'll see your last ten years and raise you another fifteen - that makes twenty five, at least. Painted From Memory has it all - and does everything flawlessly, surpassing the slightly similar albums with Anne Sofie von Otter (uneven and a bit of a mish-mash), and the later North (where EC tried to do all the arranging himself, ending up kind of bland). Mike

It's more than $20 an issue. That's a ridiculous price. If there's a fool willing to pay it, he deserves to be parted from his money. Of course, I completely agree that the old magazines are wonderful. That's not in question. Mike

Ah, but do you have the video of EC performing that tune on late night TV - can't recall offhand whether it was Tonight show or Letterman or what - with all-female orchestra? I've got it - on one of those VHS tapes somewhere here. Mike

He Helped Put The Blue In Blue Note - The History of Jazz Runs Through Rudy Van Gelder Super-typical article on RVG - not yet on the NYT website. It's an entire page - more than half of which is filled with Francis Wolff photos - and not the most common ones, either. It is indeed nice to see this in the NYT - their jazz coverage has declined in quantity and quality to a dismal level. This really isn't news, though. Mike

This kind of confusion does make life difficult for discographers - some things have as many as FIVE label names on them! But just to be clear, Sunnyside is NOT owned by Sue Mingus (like Revenge was/is). Here is an article that reports that Sue planned to issue "I Am Three" on her own label, not Revenge but a new one named 'Sue City' - but apparently that isn't the way things worked out. http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20...1w21mingus.html I'm not sure exactly what the relationship is between Sunnyside and Universal/Verve - the first I noticed this link was when Sunnyside issued a Kenny Barron album that originally came out on Verve/France but seemed to have been turned down by Verve/USA. Alan's site lists Part II of that recording from Bradley's as an upcoming Sunnyside CD issue. Mike

No and no. These are the various ghost bands (all sanctioned and coordinated by Sue). Sunnyside is nothing to do with Sue Mingus. It's been around since the early 1980s. Mike

Costello featured in an article in tomorrow's NYT titled "Last Year's Model: How to sell fans on the same old album for the third or fourth time" - for the first time I have seen the word "superexpanded" to describe a reissue. Mike

Is it me or do those last two avatars back to back seem just a little scary? Mike

We do have a great book on Detroit, by Jim Gallert, who hangs out here from time to time, and Lars Bjorn. It's titled Before Motown - and a companion CD on Uptown is in the works. Mike

What a stupid post. Who comes up with this crap? "In other words I am three" is for jazz fans, the equivalent to "Call me Ishmael" - it's the opening to Mingus's book Beneath The Underdog. Now, the relevance to this album is that it apparently features three groups: Mingus Dynasty, the Mingus Big Band, and the Mingus Orchestra. Mike

Yes. See my website for detailed Joe Gordon discography. Mike

McLaughlin also lived in Paris for a number of year - he may still. Mike

And oh yes, the ignore feature is here. Look under "my controls" and on the left side "manage ignored users" Mike

The part 1 & 2 Sad March single was not a 45, but a 33 and at least according to that site promo only. I'm Gonna Go Fishin' must have been edited for the 45 issue since Mosaic lists it as running 11:13 on the album. Maybe someone could confirm that's just an edit, not a different take. Mike

McLaughlin was born in Kirk Sandall, Yorkshire in 1942 - I'm not familiar enough to know if that makes sense for his speech. I marvel at the fact that two of the most influential guitarists in the last 40 years are both from Yorkshire - Allan Holdsworth born in Bradford in 1946. Something in the water? Mike

What was the exact line?....... STOP MESSING WITH MY PICTURE ONLINE OR I'LL KILL AND SUE YOU!!!! Mike

Sigh - this is all the result of mistranscribed quotations. It's amazing how the proper punctuation changes things: "Here's a man who at the age of 19, taught himself the guitar. And today he's considered, (pause) by jazz musicians, the greatest guitar player, Herb Alpert." "Wes Montgomery - my favorite guitar player, Herb Alpert." In fact, these statements were made TO Wes Montgomery when he was being introduced TO Herb Alpert. Alpert's guitar playing prowess is a very well-kept secret. And who was the man who made the above statements as he presented Alpert to Wes? The great multi-instrumentalist Toejam Jawallaby. If you are not familiar, our man Garth Jowett can illuminate. Mike

The charts for the Rhoda Scott album with the Jones-Lewis Orchestra were recently discovered after being lost for almost 30 years. I heard some of them played at the Vanguard last week (no organist present). Mike

Any truth to the rumor that Art Blakey was there for both? Mike

I think one of the strongest assets of Manhattan Symphonie is the repertoire: Dexter playing Moment's Notice (only recording I know of), revisiting Tanya from the Blue Note days, a nice Body and Soul (with respect paid to Coltrane's version), George Cables's piece I Told You So, the first Dexter recording of As Time Goes By, and Long Tall Dexter, which goes all the way back to 1946 on Savoy. I agree there is something kind of "pristine" about things - but it works, for me. This is the mate to Sophisticated Giant, which is Dexter in a great large ensemble, courtesy of Slide Hampton. The blowing on the Black Lion and Steeplechase stuff is indeed great, but as "albums" I choose these. Mike

I'd love to get setlist/personnel details on this for my Slide Hampton discography to get a jump on the upcoming album - and Mark, let's talk photos again! I'm looking forward to seeing the others you've got. Mike

Date: July 2, 1956 Location: New York City Label: Columbia Horace Silver (ldr), Hank Mobley (ts), Joe Gordon (t), Horace Silver (p), Doug Watkins (b), Kenny Clarke (d) a. CO56459 To Beat Or Not To Beat - 04:02 (Horace Silver) b. CO56460 Shoutin' Out - 06:33 (Horace Silver) c. CO56461 How Long Has This Been Going On - 05:18 (George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin) All titles on: - Portrait LP 12": RJ 45138 - Silver's Blue (1989) - Epic LP 12": LN 3326 - Silver's Blue - Epic LP 12": LA 16005 - Silver's Blue Date: July 17, 1956 Location: New York City Label: Columbia Horace Silver (ldr), Hank Mobley (ts), Donald Byrd (t), Horace Silver (p), Doug Watkins (b), Arthur Taylor (d) a. CO56824 I'll Know - 07:24 (Frank Loesser) b. CO56825 Silver's Blue - 07:44 (Horace Silver) c. CO56826 The Night Has A Thousand Eyes - 08:59 (Buddy Bernier, Jerome Brainin) d. CO56827 Hank's Tune - 05:26 (Hank Mobley) All titles on: - Portrait LP 12": RJ 45138 - Silver's Blue (1989) - Epic LP 12": LN 3326 - Silver's Blue - Epic LP 12": LA 16005 - Silver's Blue ====================== Mike

WKCR played most (all?) of the byg album Tarik yesterday morning. I didn't realize it was in honor of the birthday. Mike

Please do - the Mosaic site shows the album track to be 5:46, so at worst that track was edited down to 2:43. Perhaps it's the "part 1" of the split promo single shown on the site I mentioned above. Mike