JAZZ DETECTIVE ZEV FELDMAN ANNOUNCES TIME TRAVELER RECORDINGS FEATURING NEW REISSUE SERIES FROM THE LEGENDARY MUSE RECORDS CATALOG

NEWS
by TAS Staff
Sep 01, 2025

Zev Feldman—record producer and Jazz Detective—launches his next endeavor, the archival label Time Traveler Recordings with the label’s Muse Master Edition Series: a run of masterpiece reissues from the historic Muse Records catalog. Pre-order Muse Master Edition Series.

The series begins with the October 17th release of three albums from the legendary label’s discography:

Drummer Roy Brooks’ seminal 1972 live album The Free Slave
This album captures Brooks at a live date in Baltimore in 1970, recorded by Orville O’Brien, with a fearsome quintet featuring trumpeter Woody Shaw, tenor saxophonist George Coleman, pianist Hugh Lawson and bassist Cecil McBee. Pre-orderThe Free Slave.
Pianist Kenny Barron’s 1973 work Sunset to Dawn
Recorded in 1973, Sunset to Dawn was Barron’s debut as a leader. It features his unshakable grooves and luminous, fluid piano tones — with vibraphonist Warren Smith, bassist Bob Cranshaw, drummer Freddie Waits and conguero Richard Landrum — on a program of both timeless acoustic jazz and the funky, electric zeitgeist of the 1970s. Pre-order Sunset to Dawn.
Cosmos Nucleus, 1976 recording from Panamanian tenor saxophonist Carlos Garnett

A rare and much sought-after recording with Garnett at the helm of a massive 26-piece ensemble that includes such luminaries as trumpeters Roy Campbell and Ahmed Abdul Malik, trombonist Clifton Anderson, bassist Cecil McBee, and, on electric piano, a very young Kenny Kirkland making his first ever appearance in a recording studio. Pre-order Cosmos Nucleus.

Subsequent major releases are planned quarterly from artists such as Woody Shaw, João Donato, Clifford Jordan, Joe Chambers and more.

Time Traveler will provide Muse collectors and fans with “The Rolls Royce, ultra-deluxe vinyl experience,” in Feldman’s words. These initial exclusive vinyl sets will only be available as a limited release, issued on 180-gram LPs (pressed at Germany’s Optimal Media), analog mastered directly from the original tapes by the acclaimed engineer Matthew Lutthans at The Mastering Lab in Salina, Kansas. They will be issued in high-gloss tip-on jackets furnished by respected printer, Stoughton Press, with new liner essays by Shannon Effinger, Ted Panken, and Syd Schwartz for the Brooks, Barron, and Garnett reissues, respectively. The packaging will mirror a facsimile of the original productions with upgrades.

“I’m so happy to see the Muse catalog being reissued, and that it’s being given the proper curation. The world will get to be exposed to this music all over again,” says Barney Fields, son of Muse Records founder Joe Fields. “I think my father would be honored to see that something like this is happening—and I know, with the Time Traveler folks at the helm, that it’ll be done right.”