Prestige studio sessions 1965-70

[Michael Fitzgerald]

In trying to confirm some Prestige session locations, I have found that erroneous information is included in many standard discography entries, and even on some official CD reissues. Some folks assume that Rudy Van Gelder did *all* Prestige sessions and list Englewood Cliffs (some discographies even list Hackensack up into the late 1960s!) without thinking. I've also seen cases where Englewood Cliffs is given as the location and another New York engineer is named - this is not correct as no one but Rudy engineered at Van Gelder.

Basically, I am interested in learning studio/engineer information for Prestige sessions from the mid-1960s to early 1970s. The best source for correct info is original LPs. If the CDs give studio/engineer OTHER than Van Gelder, I tend to believe that.

There are so many errors that I am starting to wonder whether RVG did ANY Prestige sessions in the mid-late 1960s. Could Richard Alderson have done the majority until 1969? Can someone prove this wrong, using LP info? Here's a few artists whose 1965-1970 work has been credited to RVG that I could use confirmation on:

Chet Baker

Sonny Criss

Booker Ervin

Eric Kloss

Charles McPherson

Other artists from this period:

Jaki Byard

George Braith

Frank Foster

Byrdie Green

Groove Holmes

Gatortail Jackson

Freddie McCoy

Jack McDuff

Don Patterson

Houston Person

Trudy Pitts

Pucho & Latin Soul Brothers

Freddie Roach

Johnny Hammond Smith

Sonny Stitt

and more

Complete listing here (basically I'm talking about 7400+)

http://www.plosin.com/milesahead/prestigeLabel.html

I'd appreciate any assistance in straightening out the confusion.

Mike

P.S. - The lack of creativity in titling these albums is AMAZING. Basically, just take ANY word and combine with "Soul" and you've got a Prestige title: Soul Electricity; Electric Soul; Natural Soul; Soul Professor; Soul Guru; Soul Yogi; Soul Man; Soul Mist; Soul Message; Soul Power; Soul People; Soul Book; Soul Cycle; Soul Grabber; Soul Explosion; Soul Talk; Soul Outing; Soul Fingers; Soul Flowers; Soul Dance; Soul Brotherhood; Super Soul; Mellow Soul; Underground Soul; Psychedelic Soul Jazz; Living Soul; Laughing Soul; Red Soul; Bucketful Of Soul; Sunshine Of My Soul; Saffron And Soul; Body And Soul - whew! Don't make me start on the "Chocomotive" and "Mocha Motion" thing.

[Stereojack]

I have many of these - will comment as I find the time.

The 5 Chet Baker LP's give no engineer credit. Since they were produced by Richard Carpenter, I've always assumed that Prestige acquired these from Carpenter. Ruppli does not identify studio or engineer.

Booker Ervin:

The Song Book - Van Gelder

The Space Book - Van Gelder

Groovin' High - Van Gelder

Setting the Pace - Willy Schmidt (Germany)

The Trance - Willy Schmidt (Germany)

Heavy - Alderson

Charles McPherson:

Con Alma - Van Gelder

From This Moment On - Alderson

Horizons - Alderson

McPherson's Mood - Paul Goodman

Jaki Byard:

Live - Alderson

Freedom Together - Alderson

On the Spot - Van Gelder (This does contain one track from the "Live" sessions,

Alderson not dredited.

Sunshine Of My Soul - Alderson

With Strings - Alderson

Experience - Alderson

Solo Piano - Danfort Griffiths

[kh1958]

I pulled out as many pre-OJC Prestiges as I could quickly find.

Roland Kirk with Jack McDuff--Kirk's Work--Prestige 7210--Recording: Rudy Van Gelder (RVG in the wax)

Richard Groove Holmes--Spicy--Prestige 7493--Recording: Rudy Van Gelder (Van Gelder in the wax)

Booker Ervin--Heavy!!!--Prestige7499--Recording Richard Alderson (cover is pre-Fantasy but LP is post-Fantasy).

Jaki Byard with Strings--Prestige 7543--Recording Richard Alderson (cover is pre-Fantasy but LP is post-Fantasy)Jaki Byard Experience--Prestige 7615--Recording Richard Alderson (cover is pre-Fanstasy but LP is post-Fantasy)

Brother Jack McDuff--I Got a Woman--Prestige 7642--no information

Johnny Hammond Smith--Black Feeling--Prestige 7736--Recording: Rudy Van Gelder--Van Gelder in the wax.

Johnny Hammond Smith--Here it 'Tis--Prestige 10002--Recording: Rudy Van Gelder--Van Gelder in the wax.

Houston Person--Person to Person--Prestige 10003--Recording: Rudy Van Gelder--Van Gelder in the wax

Houston Person--Prestige 10044--Recording Engineer--Rudy Van Gelder--Van Gelder in the wax (Post-Fantasy release, I believe)

Dexter Gordon--Generation--Prestige 10068--Engineer Rudy Van Gelder, Van Gelder Studios--Van Gelder in the wax (post-Fantasy release, I believe)

Edited August 21, 2005 by kh1958

[Michael Fitzgerald]

Excellent!

The OJC LPs don't alter the covers, right? So even an OJC LP would still have the correct info. It's the OJC CDs that are the problem - for example, the CD of Jaki Byard Experience says Van Gelder, which it definitely is NOT.

Van Gelder expert Dan Skea told me that the Chet Bakers were done at Rudy's.

Mike

[JSngry]

Don Schlitten's American studio of choice from the late 60s onward seemed to be RCA, and his American engineer of choice seemed to have been Paul Goodman. Before the late 1960s, he seems to have used Rudy, but not exclusively. For instance, Dexter's "Power" albums were engineered by George Klabin at an unnamed NYC studio.

Bob Porter seemed to have always used Rudy, as did Cal Lampley & Ozzie Cadena.

[Michael Fitzgerald]

Based on what I've got so far for Prestige, RCA/Goodman started in late November 1969. Prior to that was the Danfort Griffiths period (June-November) But Schlitten was using Alderson heavily prior to that in the 1965-1968 period. I know of no Alderson sessions later than January 1969.

There were a few oddball listings, like Dave Jones (recorded Cedar Walton: Electric Boogaloo Song on Jan. 14, 1969).

Klabin's studio was Sound Ideas, which was established in 1969 and closed in 1981.

This is all excellent info. Keep it coming!

Mike

[brownie]

The liner notes to the Lucky Thompson Plays Happy Days are Here Again (Prestige 7394) state that it was the Prestige debut for Alderson. David Himmelstein notes that Alderson is 'a young technician with a jazz soul whose mission is to ''return'' to the live sound of jazz that has been engineered out of most modern records by the antiseptic approach of high fidelity buffs'.

Other albums I checked (not much time right now!):

Houston Person 'Blue Odyssey (7566) Richard Alderson

Don Patterson 'Opus de Don' (7577) Orville O'Brien(Town Sound)

Barry Harris 'Bull's Eyes' (7600) Richard Alderson

[brownie]

At the same time, Richard Alderson worked for Prestige, he also took care of many of ESP best recordings, including Ayler's 'Bells', the Charles Tyler ensemble, the Pearls Before Swine, the Fugs and many others!

[Michael Fitzgerald]

To follow that brief tangent - what is curious is that the May 1, 1965 Town Hall recording that produced Bells also produced More by Giuseppi Logan and another engineer (Art Crist, sometimes spelled Christ) is credited with two of the four tracks by Logan, while Alderson is credited with the others. My CD issue only gives Town Hall as a location and only May 1, 1965 as a date - but I know that Art Crist did studio sessions at Bell Sound, so perhaps there was a separate studio date with Eddie Gomez replacing Reggie Johnson. It seems odd to have two bassists and two engineers if it's only one session.

Mike

I hate it when I answer my own questions - I propose that the Logan material with Gomez is actually left over from the first ESP album, recorded at Bell Sound (with Art Crist engineering) on October 5, 1964. OK, back to Prestige.

Edited August 21, 2005 by Michael Fitzgerald

[Jim R]

Mike, just so I'm clear, are you saying that Ruppli's Prestige discog is generally unreliable in this regard? I have a copy, which lists supervisor and engineer for many sessions (although specific studio info is not given... "New York" is used generically for anything recorded in the area).

[bertrand]

This may or may not help:

A few years ago, Dan Skea (who is doing an RVG discography) sent me a list of Prestige dates for which he needed more information on the location. If I remember correctly, Dan was looking at an edition of Ruppli's discography that was vague about location. It may have been something like listing Englewood Cliffs on all entires, or something like that.

In the end, I was able to clear some things up. I thought I would look at LPs at the Felix Grant Jazz Archives in DC, but they had only a few of them. In the end, I found a different edition of the Ruppli book which had more details.

Sorry I'm being vague, I didin't keep any records of my work on this, but I know it helped Dan so that was good. I think Dan later found a copy of the 'detailed' edition somewhere.

So, the remaining questions are:

1. What edition of the Ruppli book was I looking at?

2. Where did I find it?

My guess is it was the edition as the University of Maryland Performing Arts Library. It was NOT the one at the Library of Congress. I will try to confirm this, and look up the edition information.

I have to go to UMD Friday, but I will have only a little time there. If I can, I will look it up, unless you find it before.

Bertrand.

Edited August 21, 2005 by bertrand

[Michael Fitzgerald]

I know about the differences in the Ruppli books and actually, all the copies I've ever seen are all the "non-specific" versions.

I'm really trying to improve the level of detail from the "NYC" kind of thing that exists now (and the mislabeling of actual New York sessions as Englewood Cliffs or Hackensack as well as vice versa). Keeping track of engineer name can aid in getting a studio name (and vice versa) because some issues list one but not both. It's all part of the research process.

As we have some serious organ freaks here, I'm hoping they can come through with stuff that is not available to me.

Mike

[Jim R]

Keeping track of engineer name can aid in getting a studio name (and vice versa) because some issues list one but not both. It's all part of the research process.

←

Mike, this is why I asked whether Ruppli is reliable (in terms of the specific supervisor/engineer info that's actually given). Perhaps you have the same info I have (mine is apparently the first edition, July '72), but I'm still not clear whether I can contribute anything. Taking Eric Kloss as an example, there are about 10 sessions, and only the first few are listed as being engineered by RVG. About six or seven of the later ones were engineered by a variety of other men...

[Chuck Nessa]

Most of these questions can be answered by listening to the recordings - or is this an academic question?

Listening is the next best thing to a primary source.

[Michael Fitzgerald]

It's the second edition which seems to be more common, at least for me. That one, for some reason, eliminated the location specifics. You would think the reverse, but.....

Sure, this would be helpful - I'll just notate that your source was the Ruppli book.

Kloss - there are 11 sessions. Right now I show 7/22/69 as Danfort Griffiths, but I don't know studio name. I show 1/2/69 as Richard Alderson and I believe his studio name was Impact Studios at that time. The rest are either unknown or RVG - if you can confirm or elaborate, that would be wonderful.

Mike

[kh1958]

I have Eric Kloss' Land of the Giants on a Prestige LP. It says Recording by Dave Jones.

Another Prestige LP from this era, Melvin Sparks, Akilah!, recorded by Rudy van Gelder.

[JSngry]

Two more Kloss items:

To Hear Is To See - recording by Danforth Griffiths

Consciousness - recording by Paul Goodman (RCA)

Two other items:

Pat Martino - Strings - recording by Richard Alderson (and liner notes by Mark Gardner, in what must be the smallest typ I've ever seen. And even at that, it fills up the entire back cover!)

Don Patterson - Soul Happening! - recording by Van Gelder

The first three are all Schlitten-produced, while the last is a Cal Lampley job. Does it seems that Schlitten is responsible for most of the non-Van Gelder sessions? And if so, is there a reason why he avoided Rudy? Or was he banned for some reason?

[Jim R]

Thanks, Mike. I just didn't want to be throwing info at you that you already had.

The Kloss sessions:

Introducing Eric Kloss (9/1/65) - NYC; Sup. Cal Lampley; Eng. RVG

Eric Kloss (3/14/66) - NYC; Sup. Cal Lampley; Eng. RVG

Love And All That Jazz (4/11/66) - NYC; Sup. Cal Lampley; Eng. RVG

Eric Kloss (12/21/66) - NYC; Sup. Cal Lampley; Eng. RVG

Grits And Gravy (12/22/66) - NYC; Sup. Cal Lampley; Eng. RVG

First Class Kloss (7/14/67) - NYC; Sup. Don Schlitten; Eng. Richard Alderson

Life Force (9/18/67) - NYC (no further data)

We're Going Up (12/22/67) - NYC; Sup. Don Schlitten; Eng. Richard Alderson

Sky Shadows (8/13/68) - NYC; Sup. Don Schlitten; Eng. Richard Alderson

In The Land Of The Giants (1/2/69) - NYC; Sup. Don Schlitten; Eng. Dave Jones

To Hear Is To See (7/22/69) - NYC; Sup. Don Schlitten; Eng. Danfort Griffiths

[Michael Fitzgerald]

Beautiful - all good. Many contradictions fixed.

Just after the section that Guy posted from the Lucky Thompson Happy Days notes, it says that Alderson was the discovery of Don Schlitten, so that's why Don used Alderson.

Mike

[Jim R]

Sonny Criss sessions where someone other than RVG is listed as engineer:

Up, Up and Away (8/18/67) - NYC; Sup. Don Schlitten; Eng. Richard Alderson

The Beat Goes On (1/12/68) - NYC; Sup. Don Schlitten; Eng. Richard Alderson

Sonny's Dream (5/8/68) - L.A.; Sup. Don Schlitten; Eng. Mickey Crawford

Rockin' In Rhythm (7/2/68) - NYC; Sup. Don Schlitten; Eng. Richard Alderson

I'll Catch The Sun (1/20/69) - NYC; Sup. Don Schlitten; Eng. Peter Abbott

[Michael Fitzgerald]

Great - now, about the last one: with a cast like Hampton Hawes, Monty Budwig, and Shelly Manne, does it really say NYC????

I've learned more about Dave Jones - not sure if he ever had a studio of his own or what, but this guy was responsible for some great location recordings for Riverside - Ugetsu, Evans at the Vanguard, Byrd at the Gate....

Mike

[Jim R]

George Braith - 4 sessions, all listed as RVG

Frank Foster - 3 sessions, all listed as RVG

Byrdie Green - 3 sessions, all listed as RVG

Groove Holmes - All RVG, except for 4/26,27/67 sessions in Chicago

Gatortail Jackson - All RVG where indicated

Freddie McCoy - All RVG where indicated

Jack McDuff - Of the few sessions in the late 60's, no engineer indicated

Don Patterson - Non RVG:

"Funk You" (9/24/68) NYC; Sup. Don Schlitten; Eng. Richard Alderson

"Opus De Don" (6/5/68) NYC; Sup. Don Schlitten; Eng. Orville O'Brien

"Boppin' And Burnin'" (2/22/68) NYC; Sup. Don Schlitten; Eng. Richard Alderson

"Four Dimensions" (8/25/67) NYC; Sup. Don Schlitten; Eng. Richard Alderson

Houston Person - Non RVG:

"Blue Odyssey" (3/12/68) NYC; Sup. Don Schlitten; Eng. Richard Alderson

"Trust In Me" (10/13/67) NYC; Sup. Don Schlitten; Eng. Richard Alderson

"Chocomotive" (6/14/67) NYC; Sup. Don Schlitten; Eng. Richard Alderson

Trudy Pitts - All studio sessions by RVG

Pucho & Latin Soul Brothers - Non RVG:

"Dateline" (2/11/69) NYC; Sup. Don Schlitten; Eng. George Klabin

"Heat!" (4/23/68) NYC; Sup. Don Schlitten; Eng. Richard Alderson

"Big Stick" (12/5/67) NYC; Sup. Don Schlitten; Eng. Richard Alderson

"Shuckin' And Jivin'" (8/9/67) NYC; Sup. Don Schlitten; Eng. Richard Alderson

Freddie Roach - All RVG

[Jim R]

Great - now, about the last one: with a cast like Hampton Hawes, Monty Budwig, and Shelly Manne, does it really say NYC????

←

Uh... no, it doesn't. I'm trying to be careful, though, I promise.

[Jim R]

Johnny Hammond Smith - All RVG

Sonny Stitt - All RVG where indicated

[Jim R]

Skimming through the book now, I see that Alderson was indeed on a great deal of sessions (many already mentioned) from '65 to '68. RVG is scattered in there, as well. In '69, some different names begin to pop up in NY in addition to RVG's continued presence:

Dave Jones (the aforementioned Kloss, Cedar Walton's "Electric Boogaloo Song" (1/14)

George Klabin (Pucho & LSB "Dateline"; James Moody "Don't Look Away Now"; Illinois Jacquet Big Band "The Soul Explosion"; Dexter's sessions with Moody)

Danfort Griffiths (Kloss "To Hear Is To See"; Walton "Soul Cycle"; Byard "Solo Piano"; Eddie Jefferson "Come Along With Me"; Jacquet "The Blues- That's Me"; "Tal Farlow Returns")

Paul Goodman (Barry Harris "Magnificent"; Charles McPherson "McPherson Mood")