Since You Asked

By the time I had the pleasure of working with Val Valentin in the mid eighties, I knew him only as the nice, white-haired Venezuelan gentleman who handed Ed McMahon his mic as he came onstage to emcee Star Search. That's Val to Sammy's left wearing the suit and tie. I was young and a bit dense and had no idea the guy was an extreme heavyweight in the recording world. Today online I've seen references claiming Val and Rudy Van Gelder were arguably the two most important jazz recording engineers ever, but back then all I knew about him was that he was friends with Ed Greene, and pleasant to work with. He was also an engineer at Verve Records during their heyday in the late fifties and early sixties, eventually running the engineering side of the label. Several LPs regularly come up when serious vinyl devotees engage in the "you gotta have this one" game. The Soul of Ben Webster often gets mentioned, along with Coltrane's Giant Steps, but one bl