The Gig

Behind every great recording lurks a great engineer: unseen, unsung, unknown to most of the outside world. For many years, the most prominent of these shadowy figures was a New Jersey optometrist named Rudy Van Gelder, who served as Blue Note Records’ house engineer (literally; he recorded musicians in his living room) during the label’s frenzied heyday. As a result of his relationship with Blue Note (and CTI, and to a lesser extent, Prestige), the Van Gelder touch is evident on a sizable portion of jazz’s most celebrated cuts.

Blue Note has capitalized on this legacy in recent years, with the introduction of a Rudy Van Gelder (RVG) reissue series. This extensive imprint (62 titles and growing) consists of albums originally engineered by Van Gelder and now remastered by him, with modern equipment, in 24-bit sound and with occasional bonus tracks. Glance down the list and you’ll find dozens of must-haves (Hank Mobley’s Soul Station, Wayne Shorter’s JuJu and Dexter Gordon’s Go!, to name but a few). But what improvements has Van Gelder made, practically speaking? Should someone who already owns The Amazing Bud Powell Vol. 1 rush out to replace it with an upgrade?

The answer, not surprisingly, varies. Some of the titles in the RVG series offer a substantial leap forward in sound quality; last year’s reissue of Miles Davis’ Birth of the Cool (RVG Edition) was a revelation, boasting sonic clarity unparalleled in previous versions. Other refurbished titles, however, offer only incremental improvements; a recent blindfold test in my apartment confirmed that the sound quality of Ornette Coleman’s At the Golden Circle progresses from "pretty low-fi" on the original version to "a little warmer" on the RVG (this according to my roommate, a trumpeter and listener both). But these are two extremes. On most titles in the series, Van Gelder’s modifications make a noticeable but not earthshaking difference.

If Rudy were on a similar mission with the Prestige catalog, he might have remastered Pat Martino’s fantastic 1967 debut El Hombre. Since that won’t happen anytime soon, we’re fortunate to still have Martino among us; see him with pianist Jim Ridl at the Art Museum (Fri., Feb. 1, 5-8:45 p.m., Philadelphia Museum of Art, 26th Street and the Parkway, 215-763-8100, www.philamuseum.org). Also on tap this week: soundtrack crooner Steve Tyrell (Fri.-Sat., Feb. 1-2, 9 and 11 p.m., Zanzibar Blue, Broad and Walnut sts., 215-732-4500, www.zanzibarblue.com), Elliot Levin’s Interplay featuring Jamaaladeen Tacuma (Mon., Feb. 4, 10 p.m., Tritone, 1508 South St., 215-545-0475) and the Sonic Liberation Front (Mon., Feb. 4, 8 p.m., Houston Hall, 3417 Spruce St., 215-898-6533).

To report a gig — or any other jazz-related news — e-mail Nate Chinen at n_chinen@citypaper.net.