 Latest Releases in RVG seriees
Rudy Van Gelder helped produce quality records of that fertile time. Van Gelder started out as a hobbyist recording friends in his living room in Hackensack, New Jersey. Van Gelder met Blue Note Records producer Alfred Lion around 1952. The meeting led to the start of an illustrious career. In addition to Blue Note, Van Gelder recorded many other independent labels based around New York, including Prestige Records and Savoy Records. Van Gelder has recorded many of the most significant albums for many of the the greatest names in jazz, including Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Wayne Shorter, Art Blakey and others. In the mid-1950s, Monk's tune "Hackensack." is said to be a tribute Van Gelder. Van Gelder's recording techniques are often admired for the warm and balanced sound produced.
“I was the engineer on the recording sessions and I also made the masters for the original LP issues of these albums. Since the advent of the CD, other people have been making the masters. Mastering is the final step in the process of creating the sound of the finished product. Now, thanks to the folks at the Concord Music Group who have given me the opportunity to remaster these albums, I can present my versions of the music on CD using modern technology. I remember the sessions well, I remember how the musicians wanted to sound, and I remember their reactions to the playbacks. Today, I feel strongly that I am their messenger.”—Rudy Van Gelder
 John Coltrane with the Red Garland Trio: Traneing In
Having kicked a drug habit that caused Miles Davis to fire him from his quintet, John Coltrane had begun a spiritual and artistic journey that would have a profound influence on all jazz musicians that came after him. Coltrane was already accomplished as a player, but drug addiction had prevented him from reaching his full potential. Prestige records was wise enough to recognize some of that potential and signed Coltrane to a recording contract, both as a sideman and a leader. Traneing In is a record of one of those first few sessions with Coltrane as a leader, recorded in one day (August 23, 1957) at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio in Hackensack, NJ. this date of ballads and burners features the young tenor saxophonist John Coltrane leading a quartet comprised of pianist Red Garland, bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Arthur Taylor. In the original liner notes Ira Gitler remarks, “In the ‘50s I was called upon to name many of the untitled songs at Prestige. ‘Traneing In’ came to me because of the way [Coltrane] homed in after Garland’s opening solo [on the song].” (Click here to listen to Traneing In). The package includes new liner notes by Ira Gitler in addition to his original ones.
 Jackie McLean 4 5 6
Recently departed, alto saxophonist Jackie McLean’s 4, 5 and 6, recorded in July of 1956, was his third album as leader and second for Prestige. McLean would later push the accepted boundary of jazz harmony, but this LP is solidly in the hard bop school, and McLeans mastery at the time helped to establish McLean on the jazz scene. He was joined by trumpeter Donald Byrd (who shines with the altoist on Charlie Parker’s “Confirmation”) and monster tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley (also bopping hard on the tune), in a date solidified by McLean’s rhythm section: Mal Waldron on piano, Doug Watkins on bass and Arthur Taylor on drums. On "When I Fall in Love", which Miles had recorded as a mournful bluesy ballad a month before for Steamin', McLean takes it in another direction as an up-tempo bebop jaunt. McLean also plays ballads, including Waldron’s sublime tune “Abstraction” (Click here to listen to Abstraction). Writing in the original notes, Ira Gitler said, ”Jackie McLean is musically coming of age. His playing, out of Charlie Parker and Sonny Rollins, has become a personalized, more individual voice in 1956 and he has not lost any of the basic emotion, swinging qualities that help his style live up to the second syllable of his last name so well.” The package also includes new liner notes by Ira Gitler in addition to his original ones.
 Cookin With the Miles Davis Quintet
Cookin’ With the Miles Davis Quintet is the first classic album of four total that emerged from two marathon and fruitful sessions recorded in 1956 (the other three discs released in Cookin’s wake were Workin’, Relaxin’ and Steamin’). All the albums were recorded live in the studio, as Davis sought to capture, with Rudy Van Gelder’s expert engineering, the sense of a club show á la the Café Bohemia in New York, with his new quintet, featuring tenor saxophonist John Coltrane. In Miles’s own words, he says he called this album Cookin’ because “that’s what we did—came in and cooked.” Cookin opens with the ballad My Funny Valentine” this was Davis' first recording of what became a classic tune for him. As the CD continues the tempo accelerates. This remastering includes a little studio direction given by Miles at the opening of "Blues By Five" and a false start before the tune begins in earnest (Click Here to listen to "Blue By Five"). The band also really cooked on the up tempo bebop number “Tune Up,” which revs with the zoom of both the leader and Trane. he package also includes new liner notes by Ira Gitler in addition to his original ones.
 Pat Martino: El Hombre
This album from Pat Martino is a real scorcher. A worthy successor to Wes Montgomery, Pat Martino is widely recognized today as one of jazz’s greatest and most original guitarists. Less then ten years after he debuted as a leader with El Hombre, in 1976, Martino became ill and eventually underwent surgery as the result of a brain aneurysm. The surgery left him with amnesia, without any memory of the guitar and his musical career. With the help of friends and his own recordings (including this one), Pat made a remarkable recovery and learned to play all over again. His latest, Remember (A tribute to Wes Montgomery), is another masterpiece that bears witness to his immense talent. Pat Martino was just 22 when he entered Van Gelder’s studio for his debut disc, El Hombre, recorded in 1967. As a sideman, he had played with the greatest Hammond B3 players of the time: Jack McDuff, Jimmy Smith, Don Patterson and Groove Holmes, among other B-3 organists, so it wasn't a stretch to hear his first disc be in the soul-jazz groove in the company of B3 organist and fellow Philadelphian Trudy Pitts. There are galloping tunes as well as tender ballads. A bonus track on this release is the previously unreleased “Song for My Mother.” In addition to Christopher Peters' original liner note, new notes are added by Dave McElfresh, who noted that Martino demonstrated “the unique mid- to low-range tone of his guitar, the more-intelligent-than-romantic signature that still defines his style. Such somber, fleet-fingered rants, with each phrase’s high notes punctuated like a punch in the mouth, had already—by his first album—come to embody the best of hard bop guitar playing.” A stunning debut, El Hombre features originals and a Jobim cover, “Once I Loved.”
 Sonny Rollins: Plus Four
One of the true monumental figures of jazz who is still vibrantly recording and performing, Sonny Rollins was still an upstart tenor saxman in 1956 when he delivered Plus Four, a classic date with the Clifford Brown-Max Roach Quintet (of which he was a member). About the session, which featured Brown in one of his last recording dates, liner note writer Ira Gitler points out, “Within the overall empathy of Brown/Roach were interior connections: Roach, a master soloist himself, with all the soloists; and the bonding of Rollins and Brown.” In regards to Rollins’ playing of the standards chosen for this date, Gitler adds, “Sonny has always had a head for picking and playing old tunes but he also has used them to write his own lines. He knows a good melody when he hears one and, as a soloist, he is a melodist at any and all tempos.” Included on the disc are Rollins originals, “Valse Hot” (a scorching waltz, Click here for listen to this track) and the soon-to-be-standard “Pent-Up House.” The package also includes new liner notes by Ira Gitler in addition to his original ones.
These five CD are deliciously beautiful to listen to, and belong in any serious jazz CD collection. The improvement in sound from Rudy Van Gelder's' remastering replicates the original warmth of the vinyl releases. |
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Wednesday, 03 December 2008
