Remembering Rudy Van Gelder, Jazz's Tireless Engineer

Rudy Van Gelder, the recording engineer, producer and mastering engineer whose contributions to recorded jazz are less like “contributions” and more like “the definition of,” died today. He was 91, which is a great age to live to. He outlasted a lot of the musicians he recorded, including Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus and thousands more.

Losing Rudy van Gelder is like losing a fan belt or a distributor cap — a thing nobody thinks about until it’s gone, and the engine doesn’t run like it used to. For years, in jazz, Van Gelder was the fan belt, transforming energy from one realm of jazz to another, regulating and processing it, translating it for the recorded album.

“When I achieved what I thought the musicians were trying to do,” Van Gelder once said, “the sound bloomed.” A very common thing for an engineer to say; a hard thing to do. Getting in the way just enough to guide something along without losing its essence is a tricky balance, especially when that thing is Sonny Rollins playing “You Don’t Know What Love Is.” The more beautiful the art, the more an engineer usually wants to insert himself into it. Van Gelder knew to get out of the way.

Because of that talent, Rudy Van Gelder is as synonymous with jazz as the saxophone. Seeing his name on the back of a jazz album is like seeing the word “piano” on the back of a jazz album. How many albums did he record? Several thousand? We’d have to be talking not in actual numbers, and instead, percentages. (Even his initials are valuable: when record collectors buy vintage Blue Note pressings, they look for an “RVG” etched into the space between the record’s grooves and its label. Its absence indicates the pressing was not personally mastered by Van Gelder, and therefore worth far less. His ear was that widely trusted.)

For my part, I finally decided a few years ago to look up Rudy Van Gelder’s studio on Google Maps. It was like looking up Paisley Park, or Abbey Road, or Sun Studios — these places you’ve heard about for years and then one day remember, “Hey, the internet exists. What does that place look like?” — and it came with all the same disconnect of viewing a regular building on a regular street instead of a gleaming emerald Oz, as your mind always pictured it.

Mostly I was surprised that the studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, a city embedded in my brain from reading liner notes, was just a few miles from a hotel I’d stayed at once, seven years ago. What would I have done if I’d known Rudy Van Gelder’s place, the mecca, was just up the road? Knock on the door? Yes, probably.

And then, as these rabbit holes go, I found a story of a man who did just that. It was 2014. A woman answered the door:

She returned in a few minutes and said that Rudy did not want to see anyone. She mentioned he’s in a wheelchair. As I thanked her, I couldn’t help but peer over her shoulder into the main recording room, with the coned wood ceiling. I said “wow,” and she agreed, saying it was beautiful. Then, suddenly, over the intercom by the door, I hear a strong voice yelling “Catrina! Catrina! I don’t want to see anyone!”

If anyone earned the right to turn fans away, it was him. Rest in peace, Rudy Van Gelder – and thanks for all the records.