 | ||
The Van Gelder Studio is a recording studio located at 445 Sylvan Avenue, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. It was set up in 1959 by Rudy Van Gelder (1924–2016) and has been used to record many albums released by jazz labels such as Blue Note, Prestige, Impulse!, Verve and CTI.
Contents
Background
From around 1952, beginning with a session led by Gil Melle which was sold to Blue Note, recordings were made by Van Gelder for commercial release in the living room of his parents' house at 25 Prospect Avenue in Hackensack, New Jersey, a house which had been built with the intention of doubling as a recording studio. In 1959, Van Gelder moved to a new facility in Englewood Cliffs. The last recording session at Hackensack and the first at Englewood Cliffs were both led by Ike Quebec and are contained in From Hackensack to Englewood Cliffs, a collection of singles recorded by the saxophonist in July 1959.
Notable recordings made at Hackensack include Miles Davis' Workin' and Steamin' (1956); solo debuts by Hank Mobley (Hank Mobley Quartet, 1955) and Johnny Griffin (Introducing Johnny Griffin, 1956).
The new structure, by architect David Henken, was inspired by the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and bore some resemblance to a chapel, with 39-foot ceilings and fine acoustics. Critic Ira Gitler described the studio in The Space Book (1964) liner notes: "In the high-domed, wooden-beamed, brick-tiled, spare modernity of Rudy Van Gelder's studio, one can get a feeling akin to religion". "When I started making records, there was no quality recording equipment available to me" Van Gelder recalled in 2005. "I had to build my own mixer. The only people who had quality equipment were the big companies. They were building their own electronics."
Notable recordings made at Englewood Cliffs include John Coltrane's A Love Supreme (1964); Sonny Rollins' Sonny Rollins on Impulse! (1965), Alfie (1966) and East Broadway Run Down (1966); Stanley Turrentine's Cherry (1972) and Don't Mess with Mister T (1973); Andrew Hill's Point of Departure (1964); Carmell Jones's Jay Hawk Talk (1965); Freddie Hubbard's Red Clay (1970) and Hank Mobley's Soul Station (1960).
List of recording sessions
The following table lists recording sessions for albums, held at the studio.