- Born
- Died
- Birth nameRudolph Van Gelder
- Rudy Van Gelder was born on November 2, 1924 in Jersey City, New Jersey, USA. He is known for Time Piece (1965), Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser (1988) and Larry Coryell: Live from Bahia (1992). He died on August 25, 2016 in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, USA.
- Legendary jazz recording engineer.
- He attended optometry school in Philadelphia and practiced optometry, while keeping music recording as a hobby. Demand for his recording skills grew; with a loan from his parents, he built a control room off the family living room. Blue Note Records founder Alfred Lion heard about him and hired him.
- His original Hackensack, New Jersey studio was immortalized by Thelonious Monk in the instrumental "Hackensack".
- His father and uncle played the trumpet, as did he. He was interested in ham radio, which led to an interest in recording. He set up a monaural tape recorder in his family's living room and invited his musician friends over to play.
- There was no recording industry, really, when I started in all this, and so as I pursued recording as a hobby, I became that kid from New Jersey whom jazz musicians would come to see. The fact that, after a while, people started paying me for this was a surprise, although I'm happy about that now.
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