Val Valentin

Val Valentin
Birth name	Luis Pastor Valentin
Born	January 6, 1920 Puerto Rico
Died	March 24, 1999(1999-03-24) (aged 79) Reno, Nevada, U.S.
Occupation(s)	engineer

Luis Pastor "Val" Valentin (January 6, 1920 – March 24, 1999) was a recording engineer with six decades of work in the music industry. Much of his work was done for MGM Records and Verve Records. His large discography includes Jazz albums such as Ella and Louis, Night Train, and Getz/Gilberto.

He also recorded Rock albums, such as Freak Out! (1966), Absolutely Free (1967), and the third The Velvet Underground album (1969). Valentin's work in films includes The Color Purple (1985).

Career

Valentin's earliest known engineering credits are from around 1951, when he was credited on records released by MGM and its subsidiary Metro Records. He engineered the recordings of Hank Williams at MGM during the last two years of the singer-songwriter's life. When Verve Records was sold to MGM in 1961, Valentin, who had already been engineering for Verve for over five years, was soon after made the label's house engineer. He appeared with his daughter Kim on the game show Blockbusters in 1982 but did not win.

Valentin retained a low profile and little is publicly known about his life.

Engineering work

Valentin's hundreds of engineering credits are for the sessions of such artists as Eric Burdon, Dimitri Tiomkin, Barney Kessel, Art Tatum, Shelly Manne, Red Mitchell, Marty Paich, Lester Young, The Royalettes, Gene Krupa, Bobby Short, Art Pepper, Julie London, Coleman Hawkins, Roy Orbison, Buddy Rich, Jimmy Smith, Wes Montgomery, Astrud Gilberto, Count Basie, Kenny Burrell, Lalo Schifrin, John Barry, The Blues Project, and hundreds more. He worked with fellow engineer Rudy Van Gelder on many Verve recordings including Getz/Gilberto#2. His talents were also utilized for many movie soundtracks, including What's Up Tiger Lily.

External links

• Extensive Discogs discography
• Extensive AllMusic Discography