The RVG Edition CDs are so bad I find it very hard to believe RVG had anything to do with them, either that or he had become very deaf and couldn’t interpret what he was hearing from the monitors.
It is interesting to balance the Harley interview with Ken Micallef’s earlier stated opinion that he (like me) prefers RVG-stamped vinyl to the various audiophile reissues. I still maintain the young RVG knew exactly what he was doing and focused on the core artistic intent. Mastering is always a compromise, and turning up the bass and treble, as the TPs tend to do, inevitably has the effect of moving the mid back, and that real bite and attack to the brass, smack to the snare etc is where Blue Notes are to me. Same with Impulse, my RVG-stamped Canadian Spartan Impulse of Coltrane’s Ballads puts him right in the room like no other pressing I’ve ever heard. That can’t be accidental!