Incredible arrangement of a Kurt Rosenwinkel tune by Portugal’s Orquestra Jazz de Matosinhos.
Rudy Van Gelder is, quite simply, the greatest recording engineer in jazz history. He was responsible for just about every session on the Blue Note label from 1953 to 1967 (among thousands of others), encompassing some of jazz’s most groundbreaking and enduring classics. The signature of a Van Gelder recording lies in the rich, natural tone of each instrument and the clearly defined separation between them, ensuring that every sonic detail is audible. What’s more, Van Gelder had an uncanny knack for capturing sonic textures that supported whatever mood the musicians and producers were aiming at. Exactly how he did all that is a mystery. Van Gelder, a modest and unassuming man in many ways, was fiercely protective of his techniques, from the placement of microphones and musicians in the room to the type of mic itself. Whatever the source of his alchemy, Van Gelder was responsible for preserving some of America’s greatest music in the most sympathetic settings possible.
A one-time ham radio operator, Van Gelder was initially an optometrist by day; as a hobby, he set up a studio in his parents’ living room in Hackensack, NJ, and began recording local jazz musicians. In 1953, saxophonist Gil Mellé introduced Van Gelder to Blue Note founder Alfred Lion, who was immediately impressed with Van Gelder’s capabilities and began a 14-year association with him. Van Gelder’s crystal-clear recordings helped make Blue Note’s reputation as an elite jazz label despite its relatively small size. In 1959, he finally quit his day job and moved his studio to a new facility in Englewood Cliffs, NJ, where he has remained ever since. He broke off with Blue Note in 1967 amid the label’s post-sale overhaul, later becoming the house engineer at Creed Taylor’s CTI label in the early ’70s. Van Gelder still freelances for a variety of labels and in 1999, Blue Note began reissuing 24-bit Van Gelder re-masters of some of the label’s greatest albums.
Thelonious Monk in performance at Town Hall, New York City, 1959 (photo by Dennis Stock)
”One of the many great things about music is that it brings people together. Music is such a shared experience. I believe in its great power for good. I don’t believe in a higher power but I do think that music is mankind’s greatest achievement. Einstein was cool, but he’s got nothing on Coltrane.
This is clever: a map that represents where various great British bands have come from
Vintage business cards from Sun Ra and Outer Spaceways Incorporated (via A Sound Awareness)…
I'm a User Experience consultant/ Information Architect, with over 12 years commercial experience.
As of September 2011, I've joined the UX team at Box UK; a team of 50 experienced web consultants and software developers, based in London and Cardiff. Our clients include the BBC, Lloyds TSB, English Heritage and Welsh Assembly Government.
I'm responsible for delivering User-Centered Design services including user research, UX design & prototyping (in Axure v6), and usability testing.
I was freelancing back at Sequence to provide business analysis, UX research and UX design consultancy on 2 new projects for the agency.
I was back at e3 for a short period to help their UX team prototype several online apps & tools.
These included a financial needs app for a global insurance group, and a drag & drop moodboard/ colour picker tool for the UK's largest decorating merchant.
All work was carried out in Axure 6.
Worked on the requirements gathering and UX research & design phase for a new online video platform.
Involved in sketching out low fidelity UI ideas, documenting user journeys, designing the Information Architecture and prototyping high fidelity UIs (in Axure 6).
Worked on a project for one of the UK's largest building societies. My role involved taking some of the initial UX research work (personas, sitemap etc) and working these into user journeys and a set of HTML prototypes (developed in Axure) in readiness for usability testing.
I was also responsible for prototyping a new extranet for Orange's global sponsorship workforce (developed in Axure).
Freelancing onsite with clients to improve the user experience of their web applications. I provided user research, user experience design & usability testing services.
Clients included Welsh Assembly Government, Cardiff County Council, Cyfle and Bluestone Resorts Ltd.
8 month contract for Sequence as a User Experience architect. I worked on various projects including UK-wide procurement portals for the Welsh Assembly Government & OGC, a new site for the Arts Council Wales, and a campaign site for the Environment Agency.
My responsibilities included running requirements gathering workshops, documenting functional requirements, developing user journeys, and prototyping HTML wireframes (in Axure).
Rolling contract for E3 Media as a User Experience (UX) consultant/ Information Architect (IA). Projects I worked on included E.ON, Kia Motors, Toshiba, BSM, Cable & Wireless, National Heritage, AXA, the UK government’s National Archives and the Walt Disney internet group.
My responsibilities included running usability testing, card sorts, producing sitemaps and wireframes (in Visio & Balsamiq), developing HTML prototypes (in Axure) and writing up functional specifications.
Ad hoc UX consultancy for Enable; ranked by Revolution Magazine as the UK's no. 1 digital agency in 2007. Projects included Speedo, British Red Cross, Greenpeace, Breast Cancer Care and Warchild. I was responsible for performing the initial requirements analysis and producing appropriate information architectures and user interfaces.
As the UX/ IA on Enable’s agile development projects (run using Scrum), I interviewed key stakeholders, produced user personas, tested user journeys, ran card sorts, documented web applications and wireframed web applications (in Visio & Axure).
At Sequence, Wales’ largest digital agency I worked with their key clients including the BBC, Storm Models, Welsh Assembly Government, Sports Council Wales, Principality Building Society and the Welsh National Opera.
Over eight years, my roles included:
Information Architect - Performing the initial requirements analysis, defining the information structure and devising and wireframing user interfaces in Visio.
Copywriter & Technical author - Producing external and internal documents for the agency, including functional specifications, sales proposals, product white papers and CMS user-manuals.