Track of the Day: 'Hackensack' by Thelonious Monk

If sidemen and backing musicians are the unsung heroes of music, and producers are the even-less sung heroes, where does that leave the engineers?

Few of the men and women who arrange microphones, sit in the booths of recording studios, twist knobs, and commit music to tape (or digital files) are known to the public. But Rudy Van Gelder’s skill and talent were such that his name rightly rose to the top echelons of jazz. Van Gelder died at 91 on Thursday, Nate Chinen reported.

Van Gelder, a trained optometrist, began recording jazz sessions at his parents’ house in Hackensack, New Jersey, as early as the 1940s. Like many of the greatest studio geniuses, RVG (as he was often known) was basically a self-taught amateur, who gradually figured out how to make what were probably the best recordings in the world. By the 1950s he was recording top-flight professionals. Sessions recorded at the house included Miles Davis’ Walkin’, Relaxin’, Workin’, and Steamin’, as well as Bags’ Groove; the Modern Jazz Quartet’s Django; Sonny Rollins’s Tenor Madness and Saxophone Colossus; and Cannonball Adderley’s Somethin’ Else.

In 1959, he moved his studio to a new, purpose-built space in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Around the same time, he quit his day job.

Read more from The Atlantic:

• Steve Bannon's Bad Day: Allegations of Voter Fraud and Domestic Violence

• The Many Scandals of Donald Trump: A Cheat Sheet

• Clinton's Indictment of a Trump Campaign Built on 'Prejudice and Paranoia'

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.