RVG Legacy: Preserving the Legacy of legendary jazz recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder (Website)

Forum friends, it is with great pleasure that I introduce to you RVGLegacy.org, a website dedicated to preserving the legacy of Rudy Van Gelder. After presenting on Rudy to the Audio Engineering Society last October, I was planning several more talks when COVID hit. So I decided to put all the information I had gathered into a website that could serve as a virtual version of my talk.

Produced in association with Van Gelder Studio and Estate, RVG Legacy features dozens of never-before-seen photos from the personal collection of Rudy Van Gelder. I wrote the narrative in the spring and then built the website over the summer.

My research began about eight years ago as a troll on this forum haha! I was young(er) and naive then. I used to get into arguments with people about mono vs. stereo, and I would try to defend Rudy when people trashed him. If anything is known for sure about this secretive man, he is quite controversial and has always been able to provoke strong emotions in people, both with his sound and his personality!

But Rudy has been a huge positive influence on me and has been an inspiration in my life. I think of him as a great American artist. I hope you enjoy exploring his world!

LINK: RVGLegacy.org


Photo credit: Francis Wolff © Mosaic Images LLC

(PS: I was concerned that starting this thread might be against forum policy as self-promotion, but Steve gave me the go-ahead. By the way, Steve has been a big help over the years in my research effort!)

 

Fantastic website and a fitting tribute to a great artist. Some really amazing pictures.

 

Looks to be a very informative and entertaining site. Will be reading absolutely everything on it. Thanks for the heads up and thanks for all your research on RVG. Cheers!

 

Great job.

 

Can't wait to dig in. Your research has consistently surprised and illuminated me.

 

Eager to dig into this great info!

 

PS: The photographs of forum member @btf1980 (Atane Ofiaja) are featured on countless pages on the website! Here are few of them:

 

The first time I saw this photo was when I caught a quick glimpse of it in the 2018 doc Beyond the Notes. For a while Cuscuna didn't know what I was talking about, then my friend found a way to stream the doc from a European website of some sort (back before it could be streamed in the U.S.), took a screenshot, then I sent that to Michael and he was like, "Oh, here it is." Haha!

Of all the rare Wolff photos of Rudy I've seen since then, this one is still my favorite.

 

I've gone through your entire site and read everything. All I can say is: Well Done!

I enjoyed it thoroughly, the photos are priceless and I look forward to your updates and further insights into Rudy's world. I salute you for taking the initiative and also for working to keep his legacy alive.

 

Really well done and informative, thank you!!

 

My experience of Van Gelder is limited to having bought remasters of two Jimmy Smith albums, and seeing that they were 'RVG Remasters'. Since then, If I have found a CD which is an RVG edition (even if I don't know the artist) I will buy it. Congratulations on the website and I can't wait to get stuck in and read!

 

I'm only halfway through now 2xUel - a little past Garfield the Cat.

 

Looks like a worthy passion project! One of my heroes too, a big chunk of my collection has his fingerprints on it.

 

Glad I came across this. Really nice.

 

This is a work of art! I’m a few pages in and already blown away.

 

Don't sleep on Garfield, Gary--he is the underpinning of my entire philosophy of audio engineering.

 

This was great fun and a pleasure!

 

Listening to some of his work this weekend, Bonnie Dobson albums on Prestige.

RVG or VAN GELDER in the dead wax

 

I acquired some very nicely preserved vintage classical vinyl from the 50’s and early 60’s and was surprised to learn that Rudy Van Gelder cut the lacquers of some of the Vox vinyl. Came here looking for some research on it. The sound is very nice. Thank you for such a well done resource and archive.

 

Wow. I have never been a huge fan of his specific sound but have a great deal of respect for his skill and recognize that he was on the cutting edge of technology. I really liked the way the site describes the characteristics of his recordings and used the sound clips to illustrate specific things. After reading that, I will listen to my RVG recordings with a new appreciation. Great job!

 

VERY cool