Opening of Englewood Cliffs

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The doors of Van Gelder’s new studio opened as soon as the certificate of occupancy was issued in July 1959 (Sickler et al., 2011). While Rudy was happy with how everything came out (Cuscuna, 2004), other reactions were mixed. It was a big change for the musicians who had grown fond of the cozy confines of the Hackensack home. Isolation booths wouldn’t be installed until the 1970s, so for its first decade the live room was a single massive space a la Columbia’s 30th Street Studio.

Blue Note’s Alfred Lion, who was behind the project from the very beginning, encouraged everyone including his partner, Francis Wolff, to give it a chance. The musicians eventually became comfortable in the new space and got back to work churning out classic jazz albums with Van Gelder at the board (Clark & Cogan, 2003; Murphy, 2008; Sickler et al., 2011).

Rudy decided to continue seeing a handful of his optometry patients after moving in to the studio’s living quarters (Clark & Cogan, 2003), but his recording business continued to grow, and as a result he gave up optometry for good in 1960 (Sickler et al., 2011). Englewood Cliffs then became Rudy’s home and place of work for the remainder of his life. His discography continued to grow substantially decade after decade through collaborations with new labels like Impulse, Verve, and CTI. He survived many sea changes in the music industry and remained faithful to the jazz genre all along.

Below you will find a video containing rare footage of Rudy Van Gelder at work in December 1965. In the video, Rudy jokes with organist Jimmy Smith in the Englewood Cliffs control room after recording a take for the Verve album Got My Mojo Workin’. Verve Records producer Creed Taylor also makes an appearance:

Main photo: The John Coltrane Quartet recording at Englewood Cliffs in 1963 (Photo credit: Jim Marshall Photography LLC)

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