Rudy Van Gelder and Englewood Cliffs, NJ

As a teen Rudy Van Gelder asked his parents if he could have part of their home in Hackensack, New Jersey, to create a recording studio. The earliest engineering credit given to Rudy and his parents' home-based recording studio goes back to 1938 when Rudy was all of 14-years old. Thus began a career in the music industry that would last well into the 21st Century. For over 70 years Van Gelder Studio brought musicians to across the George Washington Bridge to record their music. Van Gelder Studios had their hand in preserving some of the most ground-breaking music in jazz history--and, for the first 21 years of it, Rudy's parents continued to live in one wing of the U-shaped home, tolerant of their eccentric son's passionate love of music, asking only occasionally that he and his "guests" do a little better job of cleaning up after themselves. (Perhaps this was the reason why Rudy's studios had the rather unusual "no food or drink" policy.)
      When a degree in optometry was earned in 1946, Rudy continued to invite his beloved jazz artists to his studio at his parents house while also maintaining a day-time practice as an optometrist. In 1953 Rudy was introduced to famed Blue Note producer Alfred Lion, with whom he struck up a professional friendship from which Rudy benefitted greatly through Alfred's mentoring as well as his Blue Note connections. By the end of the 1950s Rudy realized that he loved music and sound recording so much that he wanted to quit his optometry practice and go into record engineering full-time. But, in order to facilitate this, he knew that he would need a more professional location and setting for his production company. So he had a studio custom built, to his very exacting specifications, in a building at 445 Sylvan Avenue (now Highway 9W) in Englewood Cliffs--just 2-miles east of his parents home (which Rudy continued to reside in until his death in 2016) and just half-a mile north of the George Washington Bridge access points. In 1959 he quit his optometry practice and became a recording engineer full-time. 

     Rudy was quite unusual--even unique--for his personal commitment to each and every recording session and the resultant master tape. In fact, he quite enjoyed (even, some would say, demanded) ownership of the entire recording and post-recording process (excepting the pressing of the records themselves). This control gave Van Gelder the opportunity to ensure that the final records reflected the sound of the original tape recording (which were often clouded in the mysterious engineering techniques that he practiced so "secretively" behind closed doors). Rudy claims that during his peak production period, he would master 17 LPs every day--often intentionally relegating specific record labels he was working for to their own specific days.  

As a sound producer Rudy is quite controversial. Many people complain about his "signature" piano sound ("it sounds 'hooded'") or an over use of reverb or compression and high-frequency boosting. Rudy himself was a perfectionist, always trying to improve the sound he could capture, yet he definitely had his own vision for how things should sound--which led to the accusations that he would often guide or manipulate specific tracks and techniques in order to achieve his personal preference(s). His biggest frustration was in the limited, flawed, and inconsistent transferral of taped sound to vinyl disc--which made him a huge proponent of digital mediums for sound reproduction. this quote from a 1995 interview for Audio magazine:

The biggest distorter is the LP itself. I've made thousands of LP masters. I used to make 17 a day, with two lathes going simultaneously, and I'm glad to see the LP go. As far as I'm concerned, good riddance. It was a constant battle to try to make that music sound the way it should. It was never any good. And if people don't like what they hear in digital, they should blame the engineer who did it. Blame the mastering house. Blame the mixing engineer. That's why some digital recordings sound terrible, and I'm not denying that they do, but don't blame the medium.

Regardless of whether you liked his product (or process) or not, Rudy was a legend. He is universally recognized for advancing the science of sound engineering tremendously: many of his approaches and innovations in sound recording became standard practice--even earning the such nicknames as the "Blue Note sound," the "Van Gelder Sound," and the "Rudy Special." With 4992 credits to his name on Discogs.com and 11556 entries connected to Van Gelder Studios there can be no argument that he left a significant mark on the history and development of the music world.