The sound of Rudy Van Gelder is jazz history, his way of working both legendary and his reputation among musicians as well as top bosses amazing. The story of the man who managed to change the jazz, without ever even made it an instrument in the hand.
Rudy Van Gelder. This name represents the history and the sound of jazz. It changed everything alone with his work, and although he played no instrument, he was successful. But who is this strange man who is found on so many recordings of independent, small jazz labels as a sound engineer? How it worked? Among musicians and producers are circulating stories that report the curious audience from a bespectacled gentleman who went with picky care to work. But who Van was really money?
In the jazz scene in the name of Rudy Van Gelder has now just a mythical overtones. He is one of the few non-musician, whose review of half a century, inferior to that of the artist in anything. As the most important Self-employed in the jazz music he has the sound of not only one but a number of major record labels - especially Blue Note Records, Prestige Records, Impulse Records - able to define. All alone and out of nowhere, he created one of the major studios for the music and gave the small towns of Hackensack (his first home until he moved) and Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey a name on the jazz map.
begun But everything was quite different. Born on 2 November 1924 Jersey City, New Jersey Van Gelder showed as a teenager interested in recording technique, was in his school days jedoch zunächst als Augenoptiker ausbilden. Nach der Schulzeit führte er dies dann auch fort. Er besaß einen kleinen Optikerladen in New Jersey Teaneck, nicht weit entfernt von seinem eigentlichen Wohnort Hackensack, wo er im Haus seiner Eltern wohnte. Dort fing alles mit der Leidenschaft zur Jazzmusik und zur Tontechnik an. Mit ein paar Musikerfreunden veranstaltete er zu Hause bei sich kleine Jamsessions, die er aufnahm und langsam seinen eigenen Ton und Sound schuf. Der Ort des Geschehens war damals noch das Wohnzimmer des Hauses.
Doch mit zunehmender Popularität verbreitete sich der Ruf Van Gelders blitze schnell. Schon bald war Van Gelder eines der begehrtesten Tontechniker und Ingenieure in der New Yorker Jazzszene und viele Musiker scheuten it unacceptable like to go further in the pampas of New Jersey to work with Van Gelder can. Sun took Van Gelder on soon not only good friends but was used by record labels as Blue Note and Prestige Records for panel sessions contracted and worked with the greatest musicians of modern jazz: Pianist Thelonious Monk , saxophonist Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane , trombonist JJ Johnson and trumpeter Miles Davis - all loved the sound and the operation of Van Gelder's coming and for shots again and again to "Rudy," as they called him only.
It does not change the environment of the recordings, and so was Van Gelder lack of money is still dependent in their own living room in his parents' home record. Many images of the photographer Francis Wolff, a co-founder of the legendary Blue Note label show at the Van Gelder's recording sessions in a small studio floor lamps, blinds or wall cabinets and let them appear as natural accessories of a studio appointment.
was therefore slow, but increased the problems in 1957, and Van Gelder plagued with growing concern. For ten years he had now seen how had to be an unfinished hobby gradually developed a second career. Furthermore, studied and practiced it during the day as an optician, but he was more often found in the living room at home, busy, placing microphones and use rotary control. One day he made eye examinations at his shop in Teaneck, the next day he took again to musicians like Miles Davis.
increasing number of missing Van Gelder from now to the time for his actual work and his studio soon hit the limit of capacity, availability and space. Since he still lived in his parents' house, it was difficult to combine his hobby with his everyday life and to meet the requests of the musicians who were standing outside his house every day and wanted to take pictures. Would rise the pressure on Van Gelder himself more and he had to act and now own a bigger house, and especially where he could set up a bigger studio.
After he had found on a point of land in Englewood Cliffs, a city that is also located in New Jersey, only a quarter of an hour drive from Hackensack, did he draw on his terms plans for a house with an attached recording studio. The building's exterior is reminiscent of the Nordic style because the most striking feature was a large, on the north side of the house drawn deep down roof of almost 15 meters high. Van Gelder had it all calculated exactly and the ceiling height and the width of the house had just been measured, a stunning sound that was inside the studio. Visitors to this new studio were entered for the first time amazed by the acoustics and the pyramidal roof of this house. On the south side of Van had set up funds a small control room, which was behind a glass pane enough space for the necessary equipment such as the recording and the control units and for himself. increase
To the pleasant atmosphere of the recording room again, and to strengthen, Van funds out around the area where the musicians played potted plants and decided to build the house for a light, that radiated a warm ambience. Sometimes he dims the light and completely to the atmosphere in the recording room to change for the musicians and the music to lead to a new level. Here
Van Gelder then took in 1959 on the operation and moved with his wife and equipment of the old studios in the new premises. He dedicated himself to perfect the newly created job and had, from morning to evening, all week long with the exception of Sunday, recordings for various labels, but still remained Van Gelder independent and tied firmly never to a specific label, which Van Gelder was asked nor sought after by various labels in the jazz world.
Eine weitere große Neuerung des neuen Studios war außerdem, dass nun viel mehr Musiker auf einmal aufgenommen werden konnten. Zuvor konnte nur eine beschauliche Menge an Musikern bei den Aufnahmeterminen Van Gelders teilnehmen, meistens Gruppen die sich in der Größe von Trios und Septetten bewegten, doch nun bot das neue Studio genug Platz für ein gesamtes Orchester. Mit dem neuen Studio stieg auch die Wichtigkeit Van Gelders für die Musiker als auch für die Plattenproduzenten.
Doch wie kann man die Arbeitsweise Van Gelders beschreiben oder in Worte fassen?
Van Gelders Arbeitsweise war für viele Musiker ein Phänomen. He was always perfectly prepared and entered as the musicians, the studio was Van Gelder mostly already in the wings, had coordinated all of its microphones on each individual musicians around the room and already worked extensively with the arrangement of the instruments in space. He wore it at work, always wear gloves and forbade the eating, drinking and smoking in the accommodation space altogether. To have no insight to offer to his work, he always deliberately removed the brand name of his recording equipment. All of this was the specialty of Van Gelder Operation: Mysterious, but precise and always aiming to capture the individual musicians as alive as possible. What was there
Van Gelder's trademark, was his piano sound. He placed the piano for most of his sessions right in the middle of the room and reached so that the piano was the band in which the chords were clearly defined and the acoustics and volume of the instruments were tuned. Here, Van Gelder differed, however, fundamentally different from other sound engineers this time because, unlike many, he placed the drums never far away from the band, but used it sometimes even directly in the center with a single - as in many sessions the drummer Art Blakey .
Another trademark was that Rudy Van Gelder sparingly bypassed the microphones and use only as many as were ultimately necessary. achieved with little reverb in the room He also has a good balance between music and spatial sound. Van Gelder's methods have been revolutionary at the time and there are some even today. The fruitful cooperation
with a label created in 1953 by the encounter with the Van Gelder both owners of the New York jazz label Blue Note, Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff. In 1953 she made the baritone saxophonist Gil Melle, a musician and also have a designer at Blue Note, together with recordings of Van Gelder Lion and Wolff's attention to the unique qualities of the sound engineer from the Far New Jersey. As one of the few board owner Alfred Lion was in fact willing to pay fees for trial dates to the musicians, so The musicians were relaxed and better prepared to enter the recording studio and thus facilitated the work in the studio many times.
The list of legendary plates, which is by Van Gelder's work were very long and goes over Art Blakey, John Coltrane , Miles Davis, Hank Mobley, Thelonious Monk and Horace Silver. Thus in the fifties in Van Gelder's studio legendary recordings as John Coltrane's album "Blue Train" and Art Blakey's album "Moanin '" with Blue Note Records, or Miles Davis' albums for Prestige Records such as "Walkin '" or "Cookin '" Relaxin' "," Steamin '"and" Workin' "and in the sixties records like John Coltrane's landmark" A Love Supreme "for Impulse Records. Thelonious Monk was once a special tribute to Van Gelder, as he one of his pieces which he wrote the mid-fifties, "Hackensack", called the place of the first studio of Van Gelder.
Until now lives Rudy Van Gelder in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, in the same house and studio, where he started from the end of the fifties, plates for many independent record companies record. Even today he is still working as a sound engineer and enjoys today a highly popular jazz fans who buy the dozen by Van Gelder's new in the 24-bit format remastered albums of the label Blue Note (RVG series for Blue Note Records) and still enjoy this unique sound. They also offer also many alternate takes and bonus material, which make them a further testament Van Gelder. Today's sound engineer Rudy Van Gelder's praiseworthy work still in high notes and keep Stating again his ability to shape the sound of the music as authentic as possible. Matter how many microphones he is now using the devices and what he arrangement in Space provided for, the evidence for his contribution to jazz provides the unused sound fresh, even 40 years after the birth of the most recordings in the fifties and sixties, is available today. To listen to Van Gelder's painstaking work and the respect he has gained from the musicians of his special shows in this category. Van Gelder was a genius and is still one, and as long as he is still alive, he is the Jazz again what enrich new, if there are new images or old treasures, which he only gradually from the cabinets of famous record companies refers to Blue Note. Rudy Van Gelder's contribution to jazz is the next 100 years many people the most exciting time of the Sun Jazz gut wie möglich nahe bringen.
Mehr zu Rudy Van Gelder: Hier
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