Rudy Van Gelder’s gift was for adjusting the sound balance while the musicians ran through a song prior to doing a take, so that by the time the red light came on, all of the musical parts fitted together perfectly and no one was louder than anyone else. ![]() But though recording a quartet on two tracks might seem a fairly easy and straightforward task in comparison to the layered multi-tracking and overdubbing that came in during the 70s, getting the right balance between the instruments was crucial and couldn’t be altered once the recording had taken place (there was no mixing that could be done after the fact). From 1957, he began recording musicians directly to two-track tape while Blue Note began issuing stereo LPs alongside mono ones, before the former format took over in the 60s. ![]() Even so, Rudy Van Gelder brought a sense of sophistication to the Blue Note sound. This was a time even before multi-track reels, when mono sound reproduction ruled and the equipment was quite primitive. Recording techniques in the 50s were very different from what they are today. There was a gulf in quality that gave Blue Note an advantage. In contrast, Weinstock and Prestige just brought the musicians in cold to the studio to jam without much prior preparation. Lion had clearly focused goals in mind and paid the Blue Note musicians for several days’ rehearsal before the sessions. Evidently, as a producer he was more specific than Weinstock – he liked the music to swing, for one thing – and, consequently, was more organized. ![]() That was a result of Alfred Lion being particular about what he liked. But this didn’t trouble Blue Note – rather, the improvement in audio quality benefitted jazz as a whole, and the label’s albums still sounded unique. In fact, rival jazz indie Prestige, run by Bob Weinstock, also began hiring Van Gelder’s studio and services in an attempt to emulate the Blue Note sound. And that’s how Blue Note found the man who would give them their classic sound.īlue Note began recording exclusively at Hackensack from 1953 onwards, and the impeccable sound quality of their Van Gelder-engineered sessions – defined by clarity, depth, warmth, and sonic detail – didn’t escape the attention of other jazz labels. Lion wanted to replicate the album’s sound at the label’s usual recording home, WOR studios in New York City, but was told by its resident engineer that it wasn’t possible and that he should contact the person who made the Mellé recording. ![]() Lion had been impressed by the audio quality of a session by saxophonist/composer Gil Mellé, recorded by the engineer at his Hackensack studio. It was in that house, located at 25 Prospect Avenue, Hackensack, that what we now know as the Blue Note sound was born.īlue Note had been operating for 13 years when Alfred Lion met Van Gelder in 1952. A professional optometrist by day, at night Van Gelder, also a jazz fan, recorded musicians in a studio he had set up in the living room of his parent’s home in New Jersey. He was, when they first encountered him, a part-time, self-taught sound engineer named Rudy Van Gelder. But arguably, the most significant person they got to work for the company wasn’t a musician at all. From Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis to John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman, they recorded the music’s best and biggest names. Blue Note’s founders, Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff, signed some of the most brilliant musical minds in modern jazz.
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