VA - Blue Note Perfect Takes (2005)

These ten tracks were chosen by Rudy Van Gelder, Blue Note's celebrated and indeed legendary engineer, from the label's collection of RVG editions. Some of these cuts, such as Thelonious Monk's "Four in One" and Miles Davis' "Budo" from the Birth of the Cool sessions, were not originally engineered by Van Gelder – however, he did reengineer them for CD reissue. On these selections he worked from the original lacquer discs, giving him the ability to reproduce sound far more faithfully than any previous CD or LP issue. This means that these versions are supposedly better mastered than even the RVG series.

Other cuts he chose were Hank Mobley's "Remember," Freddie Hubbard's "Arietis," Wayne Shorter's "Footprints," Kenny Burrell's "Midnight Blue," Jimmy Smith's "See See Rider," Donald Byrd's "Christo Redentor," Art Blakey's killer read of "Moon River" from 1961, and Joe Henderson's mighty "Mode for Joe."

The advent of the CD allowed the listener to hear on his home system the sound of the speakers in the control room during the recording session, very closely, for the first time. Soon after that, when listening to other people's remastering of recordings I had made, I realized something was wrong. There was a disconnect between the sound of the CDs that were being made and my recollection of the original recording sessions with the original producers. The fact that I was listening in the digital domain made it very obvious to me. I would think to myself, 'Hey, that's not the way we did it.' Everyone listened to these early CDs, but there was very little relationship to the sound of the sessions. When I was asked to do the remastering, that was my first opportunity to give my version of it. My version, using digital technology, enables me to closely approach the way the speakers in the control room sounded during the original sessions.

Rudy Van Gelder

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Tracklist

1. Four In One - Thelonious Monk [03:31]
2. Budo - Miles Davis [02:35]
3. Remember - Hank Mobley [05:41]
4. Arietis - Freddie Hubbard [06:40]
5. Midnight Blue - Kenny Burrell [04:01]
6. Mode For Joe - Joe Henderson [08:03]
7. Christo Redentor - Donald Byrd [05:43]
8. Footprints - Wayne Shorter [07:31]
9. Moon River - Art Blakey [05:12]
10. See See Rider - Jimmy Smith [06:34]

Total time 00:55:31