From around 1952, beginning with a session led by Gil Melle that was sold to Blue Note, recordings were made by Van Gelder for commercial release in the living room of his parents' house at 25 Prospect Avenue in Hackensack, New Jersey, a house that had been built with the intention of doubling as a recording studio. In 1959, Van Gelder moved to a new facility in Englewood Cliffs. The last recording session at Hackensack and the first at Englewood Cliffs were both led by Ike Quebec and are contained in From Hackensack to Englewood Cliffs, a collection of singles recorded by the saxophonist in July 1959. Important recordings made at Hackensack include Miles Davis' Workin and Steamin ; solo debuts by Hank Mobley and Johnny Griffin. Van Gelder's recording techniques were closely guarded, to the extent that microphones were moved when photography of bands was taking place in order to disguise his means of recording. The new structure with a 39-foot ceiling and fine acoustics, designed by architect David Henken and inspired by the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, resembled a chapel. Critic Ira Gitler described the studio in liner notes for saxophonist Booker Ervin's The Space Book : "In the high-domed, wooden-beamed, brick-tiled, spare modernity of Rudy Van Gelder's studio, one can get a feeling akin to religion". "When I started making records, there was no quality recording equipment available to me," Van Gelder recalled in 2005. "I had to build my own mixer. The only people who had quality equipment were the big companies. They were building their own electronics." Many significant recordings made at Englewood Cliffs include John Coltrane's A Love Supreme ; Sonny Rollins' Sonny Rollins on Impulse! ; Stanley Turrentine's Cherry and Don't Mess with Mister T ; Andrew Hill's Point of Departure ; Freddie Hubbard's Red Clay and Hank Mobley's Soul Station.
The following table lists recording sessions for albums held at the studio.
1950s
Van Gelder commenced recording part-time in 1952 in Hackensack, commencing a long-standing association with the Blue Note label, but soon recorded for other labels including Prestige and Savoy. At the end of the decade he moved to a purpose-built studio in Englewood Cliffs.
