Zev Feldman Launches Time Traveler Recordings with Deluxe Muse Reissues

Renowned producer and “Jazz Detective” Zev Feldman has announced the launch of Time Traveler Recordings, a new archival label created in collaboration with Craft Recordings and Virgin Music Group. The label’s inaugural project, the Muse Master Edition Series, will present carefully curated reissues from the historic Muse Records catalog—starting with three deluxe titles set for release on October 17.

The series opens with:

• Roy Brooks – The Free Slave (1972), a fiery live set recorded in Baltimore featuring Woody Shaw, George Coleman, Hugh Lawson, and Cecil McBee;

• Kenny Barron – Sunset to Dawn (1973), Barron’s second album as a leader, combining lyrical piano work with funk-inflected grooves;

• Carlos Garnett – Cosmos Nucleus (1976), a bold, spiritual jazz fusion album with a 26-piece ensemble, including a young Kenny Kirkland in his first-ever studio appearance.

Feldman promises that Time Traveler will provide Muse collectors and fans with “The Rolls Royce, ultra-deluxe vinyl experience.” These exclusive editions will be limited releases, pressed on 180-gram LPs at Germany’s Optimal Media, and analog mastered directly from the original tapes by Matthew Lutthans at The Mastering Lab in Salina, Kansas. Each release comes in a high-gloss tip-on jacket printed by Stoughton Press, with packaging that replicates the original artwork but features subtle upgrades. New liner essays accompany each album, written by Shannon Effinger, Ted Panken, and Syd Schwartz for the Brooks, Barron, and Garnett releases, respectively.

“Muse Records is really one of the great untapped record labels when it comes to reissues,” says Feldman. “Its catalog captured where the music was going in the 1970s. These Time Traveler reissues will have the best sound, production quality, and packaging possible, with new inserts, new liner notes and new photographs. I’m incredibly excited about these releases. Muse is one of my favorite labels of all time and it’s time to dress up these albums in a big tuxedo.”

Future quarterly reissues are already in the works, with upcoming releases from Woody Shaw, João Donato, Clifford Jordan, Joe Chambers, and others.

Muse Records was founded in 1972 by legendary jazz executive Joe Fields, a veteran of Prestige Records. Muse continued the bebop-era legacy of labels like Prestige, Milestone, and Riverside, offering a home for top-tier artists and engineers during the 1970s. “I’m so happy to see the Muse catalog being reissued, and that it’s being given the proper curation,” says Fields’ son, Barney Fields. “The world will get to be exposed to this music all over again. 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.”

“Time Traveler Recordings is a really meaningful undertaking,” says Feldman. “It’s a collaboration with Craft Recordings, and Virgin Music Group distributing. We’re starting with jazz, but we’re not limited to it: the idea is to have a whole array of thoughtfully curated archival material for heritage artists from across musical genres.”

All album artwork has been meticulously reconstructed by John Sellards, a respected designer and restoration specialist, using original pressings as visual reference.