[78-L] Miles Davis etc [was Thelonious Monk [was Leonard

[Julian Vein]

Geoffrey Wheeler wrote:
> Since you have raised the issue of Van Gelder’s engineering style, I 
> will say I am not a fan of his. I can’t stand reverb and he adds when 
> it is not needed and it distorts the  sound.  Collectors and listeners 
> who start with his digital reissues on Blue Note and other labels, will 
> never know what the instruments really sounded like. After I bought the 
> first three Parker 12-inch “Memorial” Savoys, I was disappointed with 
> all the reverb. I then went back to collecting the original, 
> reverb-free 78s. Something critics generally avoid when discussing 
> Miles is all the fluffs he made in recorded performance. In his Capitol 
> recording of “Move,” I counted at least six obvious ones, and much of 
> his early recorded work is seldom fluff-free. Quite frankly, if he had 
> to audition to get his union card, I wonder how he passed. Even 
> trumpeters in territorial bands had better execution!
> 
> Regarding the recorded interview with Van Gelder: It is available at 
> the Institute but I don’t know what their dubbing policy is.
> _______________________________________________
Is it possible that Miles's fluffs are due to hesitations in his 
improvising, or that his ideas run ahead of his technique, rather than 
an inability to read music? Presumably a union card test would involve 
the latter rather than the former.

When I was talking about reverb, I didn't mean that used when 
remastering, but when he adds it, say, in the middle of a trumpet solo. 
Whether he does it when recording or afterwards I don't know.

I heard somewhere that, despite his name appearing on the Savoy sleeves 
as the remastering engineer, it wasn't in fact van Gelder.

      Julian Vein


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