Rudy Van Gelder Edition on Blue Note

Posted by: Dean Leroy on 05 December 2001

Hi All, Over on the Hi-Fi forum there seems to be some talk about a lack interest in music among the Naim faithful. I have the sure remedy: the RVG remasters on Blue Note. These reissues are stunning. Played back to back against the original lps and Cds this series is CLEARLY a horse of a different color. If you love jazz don't delay your pleasure. My first choices would be the Monk and then the Bud Powell. But you can't go wrong anywhere with this series.
Cheers, Dean. PS check www.bluenote.com

Posted on: 05 December 2001 by John C

"Over on the Hi-Fi forum there seems to be some talk about a lack interest in music among the Naim faithful."

Yeah what do they know? I bet none of them knows you've gotta reverse the polarity on your speaker connections to really hear the RVG's in all their glory.
Which ones do you prefer to the original LP?

John.

Posted on: 05 December 2001 by Former member

Rudy van Gelder is a near mythical figure amongst jazz cognoscenti. The sound of his recording output indeed has been very fine, for its era. However, I find his (re)mastering efforts to be rather hit-or-miss, and generally, his RVG series (especially the Japanese versions) have been very uneven. I own the Japanese RVG versions of Lee Morgan's LeeWay and Grant Green's I Want to Hold Your Hand and they are among the worst sounding CDs I own. Someone said they sounded like AM radio, which is right on the mark. His U.S. versions (they are different!) are rather better, but not outstanding IMHO. I sometimes find the regular, cheaper versions to be better balanced sonically.

On a more cynical note, I think that the RVG series is a wonderful marketing ploy by Blue Note to resell you something you already own. There are enough suckers out there who will buy yet another version of the same music (to add to their regular BN, Japanese TOCJ versions, etc.).

There has been extensive discussion amongst knowledgeable folks over at the Blue Note forum on the RVG series. Expectedly, opinion is generally divided.

Hockman

Posted on: 05 December 2001 by Former member

Dexter Gordon´s GO! is one of my favourite jazz albums. So I bought the newly remastered version by Van Gelder in addition to the first CD-transfer of the LP. Of course, I first believed that the sound quality would have improved significantly. But unfortunately, I was pretty disappointed. Though being the original recording engineer, Van Gelder failed to keep the warmth and the intimate atmosphere of the original recording. His remastering has rendered the sound very clear and distinct, but also sterile. Especially the hi-hat now sounds somewhat echo-like and pushy. It´s positive that the stereophony has become more centred and symmetrical, but nevertheless, I find the old cd-version much more appealing. Generally, I don´t mind the idea of sound perfection through remasterings at all, but one has to be aware that these are delicate tightrope acts even experienced people like Van Gelder can sometimes fail to pass. GO! being the only album of the Van Gelder Edition I´ve listened to up to now, my opinion certainly doesn´t apply to the other ones.

Posted on: 11 December 2001 by Dean Leroy

Hi John, Sorry it has taken me awhile to return to this topic. I've bee considering. I don't think I will get into the LP vs CD thing. But as far as the old vs new remasters, I would say one man's bright could be another's clear. When I compaired the my old Bud Powells to the new RVGs, for instence, it was as if a blanket had been removed from over the Piano. And, I discovered, someone in New Jersey had hired a bass player. As to your other point there is very little argument at the Blue Note forum as to the relative merits of the new reissues. There does see to be a problem with the Japanesse versions (vague and muffled) and there I agree. By the way, I have about 20 of the new RVGs and not much left of the old stuff: gone to Ebay and another more appreciative audiance. One Love, Dean

Posted on: 11 December 2001 by John C

Dean I was being slightly facetious. The reversed polarity debate that comes up on the bluenote forum mystifies me. I agree with Hockman that they are hit and miss but suspect his preference for the older CDs especially if they are McMaster transfers is due to his superior CD player.My favourites are the live recordings Sonny Rollins Village Vanguard and the recent Art Blakeys especially the announcements from the midget. I have great sounding Toshiba LP versions of the Bud Powell.

Mind you wait till you hear the greatest bluenotes of all time Ornette Coleman Trio, Live at The Golden Circle Vols 1 and 2 coming as RVGs in January!!!!

John.
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Posted on: 11 December 2001 by Dean Leroy

That was quick John. My favorite is, perhaps, Brownie's Pacific Jazz RVG but that is a bit self-reflexive as he joined the ultimate big band on my tenth birthday, June 26th. By the way that's a nice table you have. PS: Sonny and Blakey are just around the corner and I'll be looking for Mr. Coleman. "It don't mean a thing," Dean

Posted on: 11 December 2001 by Former member

The CDS does make those old McMasters sing!

It's interesting how my view on certain CDs have changed when played thru' the CDS (I had a CDI previously).

The US RVGs seem to be more consistent in sonics, but IMHO they are not necessarily better than the Connoiseurs or McMasters. I can however see why people may prefer the RVGs on lower level CD players. My favorites are the TOCJs.

BTW I generally find the more recent McMasters to be overly bright. Do these engineers have a serious roll off in the high frequencies in their hearing?

Hockman

Posted on: 12 December 2001 by Tony L

quote:
I don't think I will get into the LP vs CD thing.

Go on, you know you want to…

I find it really hard to grade the myriad of different re-issues from Blue Note, I seem to have good and slightly less good from each range. The vast majority of my Blue Note stuff is on vinyl:

One very old one - Somethin' Else, which I think is a early 60s pressing, and that sounds really good. In many ways it is the best Blue Note I have.

A lot of the 80s DMM ones with good thick covers and quite thin vinyl, the ones that had a paper band around the cover, these again sound excellent, very clear, clean and open. This was the time I started getting into jazz, so definitely some classics in here.

I have Lee Morgan's The Sidewinder with a round dark blue logo on a lighter blue label again 80s. This is pretty damn poor, very thin sounding, really I need to replace it as it is a brilliant album.

A couple from the mid 80s pressed in France, these have paper laminated over card sleeves like the US 60s stuff and again sound good.

Next up are the 90s 180 gram 'standard issue', and I find these a little variable, though on the whole good, they are a bit darker sounding than the 80s pressings, don't seem to have much low end either. I liberated a lot of these from Joel's CDS/2 clearout.

90s Connoisseur stickered 180g pressings. I only have two, but they are both stunningly good. I have one Connoisseur CD, and that is really crap, really thin sounding.

I have Coltrane's Blue Train and a Lou Donaldson album on 90s thin (i.e. not 180g) vinyl, and both are excellent. The Lou Donaldson in particular sounds fabulous.

Tony.

Posted on: 12 December 2001 by John C

I mostly agree with that grading Tony and also think the Japanese Toshibas are good. I don't like the French or Americam DMM versions I have but do quite like the French "Pathe Marconi" issue. I don't know if I've put this link up before but its very interesting on BN vinyl.

http://aris.ss.uci.edu/ling/personnel/may/Bluenote.html

John.I

Posted on: 12 December 2001 by Markus

I ended up with both the cd and vinyl versions of Sonny Clark's "Music from The Connection" album (which I strongly recommend--the quality of the music is superb IMHO). Interestingly, the cd sounds better, to my ears, than the vinyl. It has been a while since I did the comparison and I don't remember if I ever played the cd on my cds (which I don't have any longer) but the cd has better bass and the vinyl sounds a little thin by comparison. This is on an lp12 w/ittok. Hmmm, makes me think I'd better pull out both vinyl and cd again and listen again, since both cd player and cartridge have changed since the last comparison.

I've got some other duplicates at home and will check them out in the next few days and post my impressions here.

Hope others will do the same.

Oh, and thanks for the web-link to the blue note write-up on the web. Seems really useful.

Posted on: 12 December 2001 by Former member

Interestingly, the writer (who appears very knowledgeable) in the link that John posted thinks that the DMM and the Pathe Marconi '80s pressings are the worst of the lot. This certainly does not jive with my experience -- they are a little less "warm" sounding but certainly not bad. I've come to this opinion based on many different albums e.g. Go, Speak No Evil, JuJu, Somethin' Else, Soul Station, Empyrean Isles, etc.

I agree with Tony that the LP Connoisseurs are very good, but I also find many (if not all) the CDs to be good as well. Like I said, Ron McMaster tends to remaster these with the high frequency turned way up. The LPs are well worth seeking and picking up. Music from the Connection sounds phasey and bass light, though.

I generally am not keen on the '90s 180gm reissues which reputedly were remastered by RVG himself (surprise, surprise; the Connoisseurs, I believe, were done by others). The writer seems to like these. To me, they are inconsistent; some are decent and others are positively muddy sounding. Don't bother with the Sidewinder though because it sounds horrible in this version (the mastertape is probably in rags).

The Classic reissues are exceedingly fine but limited in titles.

The other LP reissues and versions are all fairly inconsistent in sonics. Perhaps I just do not have enough of a sample size to come to any firm conclusions.

Hockman

Posted on: 13 December 2001 by Markus

I had to go back to my stacks last night to figure out which title I was thinking of, but it's Idle Moments. I think the sonics on the cd remastering of this title are very good but can offer no specific comparison to other reissues, vinyl or cd.

I do remember, though, doing a comparison to *some* version of one tune on this cd to a vinyl copy of the same tune last summer, where the cd version seemed clearly better to both myself and another listener. The cd remaster offered greater transparency, insight and was musically "better" with the vinyl sounding muddy and veiled. But for the life of me I couldn't find a copy of this Grant Green album on vinyl in my collection last night so don't know what the comparison was with. A compilation? An album I've misplaced? Don't know. Perhaps my fellow listener had over a vinyl copy to do the comparison with. I don't remember the specifics but was satisfied enough that I went out and bought the connoisseur cd immediately

Posted on: 13 December 2001 by Tony L

I found the link above interesting, though I think he was a little hard on the DMM pressings. I have two of these that I rate as excellent - Kenny Burrell Midnight blue, and Horace Silver Blowing the blues away. Midnight blue is just so clean and open sounding, the percussion sounds great, and Blowing the blues away just leaps out of the speakers, really dynamic, upbeat and fun. I have several Dexter Gordon albums win this range, all of which sound great to my ears.

Found out that my oldest one, Somethin' else isn't a original, but is pretty old, I think it is the first series of the Liberty re-issues.

I have only a couple of the Connoisseur range, the Ornette Coleman album where his son plays the drums, Bobby Hutchinson's Patterns and Grant Green's Idle Moments. All are damn good, though the one CD I have in this range another Bobby Hutchinson title sounds pretty thin and lifeless.

One of the best sounding I have is the 180g pressing of Out to lunch by Eric Dolphy, that is a hell of a recording.

I have a 180g copy of A swingin' affair by Dexter Gordon that just has to be a Classic Records or equivalent audiophile job as it is stunningly good - it was liberated from Joel and he never had any remote interest in the more geeky aspects of record collecting. I have not been able to properly identify it yet.

Tony.