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In Reply to: RE: Music Matters' 33rpm titles for 2015! posted by hvbias on December 20, 2014 at 10:59:15
what I find most disappointing on all the Blue Note reissues, not just Music Matters but all the pressings I have on various labels are Van Gelder's piano recording. It does not have the right balance with the rest of the instruments and always sounds muffled. ( like Lush Life. Hello where is Red Garland's piano?! ) But I have been told that that's how it was mic'd.
So I am curious what they could do with it.
It's sort of odd that the rest of instruments are clear and brilliant nothing *murky* about it. Even the double bass, Music Matters' reissue has the best clarity and micro dynamics of strings being struck and note decays after it rather than a smeared mess of some other reissues.
I recall the CD reissues from about 10 years ago ( the ones that RVG himself got involved in remastering ) did not have the clarity thought they were awful. I can't remember which title it was.
Follow Ups:
This was a problem for a while with RVG's piano recordings, It's the reason for my negative remark about Horace Parlan's "Us Three." Peter Pettinger, author of "Bill Evans/How My Heart Sings" called RVG's recordings of Evans "scandalous." Yet some of his piano recordings (not of Evans) were quite fine. But the Blue Notes are definitely a mixed bag iMO.
It seems all the Bill Evans records I have are from either Riverside or Verve. Bill Scwartau was credited as a recording engineer for Riverside.
Speaking of How My heart Sings!, this Analogue Productions' 45 isn't bad. I still think this could be bettered but who knows the condition of the master tape now. They are all deteriorating.
I still hope someone would reissue a definitive version of his 'New Jazz Conceptions'.
Pettinger in the Bill Evans bio (a great read, by the way) was speaking specifically of Evans' recordings on Savoy, Prestige and Verve. A quote: "Van Gelder's piano sound was curiously dry and boxy, seeming to extract all life, warmth, and bloom, leaving only an anonymous residue. As far as touch was concerned, all pianists were made to sound like clones under this treatment."
It wasn't always like this. Some of Van Gelder's piano recordings, even early ones like Gil (not Bill) Evans 1957 "Gil Evans & Ten" on Prestige are perfectly fine. The worst I remember is another Prestige, the really great "Saxophone Colossus" with Sonny Rollins, where Tommy Flanagan's piano sounds exactly like the Pettinger quote while everyone else sounds fantastic. So it's a sometime thing.
Good description!
I just pulled out one of Evans' Verve recording done by Van Gelder. ( I did not know this till I paid attention to credit! )
This is just a Speakers Corner reissue, and the piano sounds clear and brilliant as it should. But no horns on this set as it's just a simple piano trio.
One thing I noticed that this is not done by his studio it looks like as some of Blue Note titles are done at VG's studio.
I have plenty of RVG recordings on other labels - like Impulse and Verve for instance - that have a different piano sound.
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