Jazz Detective Zev Feldman Begins Yet Another Journey with New Imprint, Time Traveler Recordings, and Resurrecting Three Largely Forgotten Gems from the Muse Records Catalog

By now, most readers know that the Jazz Detective, Zev Feldman, does not limit his archival work to Black Friday and Record Store Day. Recently, he unveiled the terrific Charlie Rouse Brazilian recording, Cinnamon Flower (Resonance, 2025). As the archival consultant for Blue Note Records, he has another great one – Horace Silver’s Silver in Seattle: Live at the Penthouse (Blue Note, 2025)- coming by the end of October. Yet, those are single releases. Under his new imprint, Time Traveler Records, Feldman begins by tapping into the catalog of Muse Records, a vital label in several genres throughout the ‘70s. As with any other Feldman project, he presents the highest quality in terms of vinyl sound, detailed liner notes, photographs, and excellent packaging. We will comment on his first three jazz offerings from Muse: Drummer Roy Brooks’ fiery The Free Slave (Muse, 1972), featuring Woody Shaw and George Coleman; Pianist Kenny Barron’s debut as a leader, Sunset to Dawn (Muse, 1973); and Panamanian tenor saxophonist Carlos Garnett’s big band/funk/spiritual jazz project, Cosmos Nucleus (1976), featuring 20-year-old Kenny Kirkland at the piano. Future releases are planned quarterly, with Woody Shaw, João Donato, Clifford Jordan, and Joe Chambers waiting in the wings.

The unearthing of these Muse recordings follows Mack Avenue’s reissues of important Strata-East recordings within the past year. Candid Records is reissuing, too. Feldman is not involved in those efforts, but there’s a burgeoning trend of introducing today’s listeners to important music of eras past they may have missed. As a listener from that period of the ‘70s, this listener, and likely others, only wish we could hear reissues of Cobblestone, MPS, and Inner City, to name just a few. Nonetheless, Muse may well be the most important. Jazz was suffering in the ‘70s, having taken a back seat in the popular consciousness to rock music. Some of the artists delivered “pretentious” material, in a sense of latching onto the trends of the time. You’ll hear that in the Barron and Garnett albums, but at least Muse was open to what the artist wished to present. Other labels purposely aimed to steer the artist away from their comfort zone, or clung to a niche, be it hard bop, spiritual jazz, or the popular flavor of the time, fusion. All those approaches and more are represented on Muse. In that sense, the release of these three albums opens a window into the disparate jazz of that time. Let’s briefly examine the three.

Roy Brooks’ The Free Slave is a glorious hard bop date recorded in April 1970 at Baltimore’s Left Bank Jazz Society. The venue’s mission was to preserve live jazz, focusing mostly on hard bop from the ‘60s in the face of jazz-fusion trends. Consider the personnel on this date – Woody Shaw (trumpet), George Coleman (tenor), Hugh Lawson (piano), and Cecil McBee (bass). Feldman has access to many of the Left Bank’s tapes, including his collaboration with Corey Weeds on Brooks’ Understanding (Reel to Reel, 2021), which was recorded just six months after The Free Slave at the same location with McBee and Shaw, along with pianist Harold Mabern and, ironically, saxophonist Carlos Garnett.  

The track “Understanding” even appears on both records. Both albums are as combustible as hard bop gets. One difference between them is that The Free Slave is lacking Brooks’ use of the novel, yet annoying, musical saw. Brooks is underrecognized but was highly respected by contemporaries such as Horace Silver, Shirley Scott, Stanley Turrentine, Yusef Lateef, Chet Baker, and Charles Mingus, along with these regular collaborators. The Muse album is one of the few with Brooks as the leader. His compositional prowess is best on display on the title track and “Understanding.” His drumming is unmistakably notable and powerful, no matter what he played, but the almost fourteen-minute “Five for Max’ is a master class in drumming.

Sunset to Dawn is NEA Jazz Master Kenny Barron’s debut as a leader. The pianist recorded it when he was thirty and a recent veteran of Dizzy Gillespie’s band. On the album, Barron leads the sextet of bassist Bob Cranshaw, drummer Freddie Waits, percussionist Richard Landrum, and vibraphonist Warren Smith. Today, we associate Barron exclusively with the acoustic piano, but here he alternates three electric tracks with three acoustic ones. There are only a handful of albums in Barron’s discography where he played electric. Given his big band experience and relatively mature age, Barron’s chops were finely honed by the time of this session. When listening to the acoustic pieces, you can hear his famed noble touch, lyricism, and advanced – even then – left-hand voicings.  Yet he was debuting and needed to establish name recognition and credibility. Thus, likely by design, Barron arguably fell into the trap of conformity by playing fusion. Naturally, he excels at it, but one can’t help but think Barron would have preferred an all-acoustic outing.  

Carlos Garnett’s Cosmos Nucleus was also his debut as a leader, an album with so many styles that it was not digestible to many, certainly not for purists, and thereby generally overlooked. As Syd Schwartz says in his liner notes, the music was “too esoteric for R&B radio, too rhythmic for the jazz snobs, and too cosmic for a post-bop world still trying to reckon its own future.” To these ears, it’s as if Garnett was trying to appease every possible segment, big band, funk and fusion, spiritual jazz, vocal jazz with a danceable R&B slant, and post-bop all within one grand album. And, it was grand in every way. The core personnel numbered a largely electric eight, with Garnett on tenor, soprano, ukulele, vocals, and serving as conductor to an eighteen-piece horn section that accompanied the octet. His charts were anything but conventional. One had to admire his ambition, but those seeking fluidity and cohesion were stumped. It’s easier for us to absorb this multi-palette now, but of the three albums, this is most reflective of the disparate avenues jazz was trying to appeal to at the time. And, to Muse’s credit, they let Garnett get away with it. It is a curiosity worth seeking out.

The opener “Saxy” is a blend of funk, fusion, and big band, with Garnett soaring above the conflagration. The twelve-minute-plus title track sets a funky groove with punchy horn charts. Five minutes in, Garnett enters on soprano, improvising Coltrane-like but never quite reaching the same spiritual heights. There are brief solos by a trumpeter, electric pianist, and percussionist, though none are detailed in the album credits.  “Wise Old Men” is a vocal track with Garnett on lead – a precursor of Tower of Power or Average White Band, perhaps? Oh, just to be a completist, this one has Latin rhythms too. Garnett and Cheryl P. Alexander share the R&B-flavored vocals on “Mystery of Ages.” “Kafira” is Garnett’s attempt, blowing his tenor fiercely and convicted, in improvisational spiritual jazz.  The danceable closer, “Bed-Stuy Blues,” meshes the big band assault with vocals and a soul-jazz take from Garnett, along with a feisty trombone solo.  Did we leave anything out? Most likely.

Time Traveler is aptly named. These three Muse offerings enable one to travel back to the ‘70s to gain an understanding of the various paths jazz was taking during that conflicted period.

‘The Free Slave,’ ‘Sunset to Dawn,’ and ‘Cosmos Nucleus’ are all out now on Time Traveler Records.