Rudy Van Gelder

Rudolph Van Gelder (November 2, 1924 – August 25, 2016) was an American recording engineer who specialized in jazz.

Regarded as the most important recording engineer of jazz by some observers,[1] Van Gelder recorded several thousand jazz sessions, including many recognized as classics, in a career which spanned more than half a century. Van Gelder recorded many of the great names in the genre, including John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, Art Blakey, Joe Henderson, Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter, Horace Silver, Grant Green as well as many others. He worked with many record companies but was most closely associated with Blue Note Records. The New York Times wrote his work included “acknowledged classics like Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, Davis’s Walkin’, Herbie Hancock’s Maiden Voyage, Sonny Rollins’s Saxophone Colossus, and Horace Silver’s Song for My Father.”