Various Artists - RVG Series Sampler: August-September 2007

"Remastered Treasures from the Blue Note Vaults"

Astute followers of this blog (and pretty much anybody who has talked to me over the past couple of years) recognize my recent obsession with the CD reissues in the Blue Note label's Rudy Van Gelder Series. The series was once described on the Blue Note website thusly:

The legendary recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder is as integral a part of Jazz history as any of the musicians that created the music. As the go-to engineer for Blue Note, Prestige & Impulse! in the 1950s/60s, Van Gelder's clean, crisp, meticulously well-balanced recordings from his home studio in Hackensack, New Jersey, and later in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, contributed to classic after classic.

Blue Note introduced the highly-successful Rudy Van Gelder (RVG) Series in 1999, giving Van Gelder the opportunity to lend his precise hand and ears to the process of remastering in 24-bit many of the great Blue Note sessions that he himself had originally engineered. RVG editions contain bonus tracks as well as rare session photographs and expert liner notes.

The Blue Note label has focused on vinyl reissues of late so there's not much information from them about the RVG discs, but my crack research staff has been able to determine there were at least 243 releases in the series. My current attitude towards collecting the series is "I won't hunt for them online, but if I see them in the wild, I'll buy them." There's no telling how long I'll stick to that plan - you never know when the completist side of my personality will rear its head.

So far, I've only been able to identify two samplers in the series: this 2007 compilation and a CD/DVD combo pack released in 2004. The combo pack will appear later in this space, but as for this sampler: WOW! If it were still in print and not a promo only release, I'd tell you to run out and pick up a copy, especially if you were looking for an entry point into '50s/'60s hard bop. I guess you could "curate a streaming playlist" [eyeroll], but in this house, we're stubbornly committed to physical product.

Note: audiophile snobs summarily dismiss the RVG series as sub-par on the whole and prefer such things as AudioWave XRCD24, APO SACD releases, and, of course, vinyl. At the current time, I have neither the time nor the inclination to search those out. However, I edge ever closer to the SACD rabbit hole. Would that mean a new blog? The SACD Project? Hmmmm... I'll get back to you on that. For the time being, I'll enjoy this great compilation.

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: Did not chart

Tracks:

That's 68:28 of good stuff. My favorites today are tracks 1, 3, 4, 6, 11, & 12

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None.

Previously revisited for the blog:
Rudy Van Gelder Series