Zev Feldman’s Time Traveler Recordings will release LPs from Roy Hargrove, Terry Callier and Buster Williams for Record Store Day, April 18, 2026.
Terry Callier At The Earl of Old Town is a captivating, never-before-released 1967 solo performance featuring the influential singer/songwriter at just 22
Roy Hargrove’s BERN is a vital, previously unissued date showcasing the then 30-year-old trumpeter/bandleader at the height of his powers. Recorded at the International Jazzfestival Bern, Switzerland in May 2000
Pinnacle, the legendary bassist Buster Williams’ celebrated 1975 debut as a leader, will be reissued for the very first time by Time Traveler Recordings’ Muse Master Edition Series
TIME TRAVELER RECORDINGS DELIVERS TERRY CALLIER AT THE EARL OF OLD TOWN FOR RECORD STORE DAY RELEASE AS EXCLUSIVE 180-GRAM TWO-LP VINYL SET ON APRIL 18, 2026
Legendary Singer’s Compelling 1967 Chicago Performance Also to be Released on CD April 24
Performance recorded by jazz impresario Joe Segal includes comprehensive liner notes from radio programmer Mark Ruffin and comments by Sunny Callier
This album is the latest release from premier archivist and “Jazz Detective” Zev Feldman and illuminates the early work of a widely influential and remarkably singular artist. Recorded a year before the release of his debut LP, Callier infused the repertoire and format of folk music with the energy and spirit of jazz improvisation. Segal, founder of Chicago’s beloved Jazz Showcase, recorded the performance which was among the vast treasure trove of Joe Segal’s archives which Wayne Segal opened to Feldman in 2025.
Along with Joe Lizzy’s pristine restoration and Matthew Lutthans’ expert mastering, the package includes liner notes by Callier’s longtime friend, Real Jazz Sirius XM program director Mark Ruffin. Callier’s daughter, Sunny Callier, serves as an executive producer. Callier, who was 22 years old when he performed at The Earl Of Old Town, grew up in Chicago’s North Side Cabrini-Green public housing projects alongside such R&B stars as Jerry Butler and Curtis Mayfield. But his own music took a different path when he brought his acoustic guitar and quietly compelling voice to the counter-culture folk music clubs that shaped the Old Town neighbourhood in the 1960s. His voice and guitar are centred here with the club’s background sounds adding a sense of historic ambience. Ultimately, this recording presents Callier’s early command of a stage and indicates where he would go in the future.
This release highlights crucial differences from Callier’s official first album, The New Folk Sound of Terry Callier, as well as his groundbreaking early 1970s records for Chess. Callier’s debut—which was recorded three years before his Earl Of Old Town appearance—featured two intertwined basses. His later Chess albums also featured producer Charles Stepney’s experimental orchestrations. He also recorded celebrated jazz-inflected soul albums for Warner/Elektra, Premonition and Verve. On Terry Callier At The Earl Of Old Town the rhythmic and melodic drive of his acoustic guitar and contours of his unmistakable voice invoke all of those later recordings’ instrumental roles. The contrast between this album’s version of “900 Miles” and the version on The New Folk Sound is one clear example.
“The then 22-year-old musician would be five years or so away from signing with the Chicagobased powerhouse Chess Records and making the second of the 15 albums he released between 1967 and his death in 2012,” Ruffin writes. “In between, his music managed to cross many categories and sub-genres. His heretofore uncompromising and hard-to-categorize style is subtly foreshadowed in this solo performance in front of a noisy Wells Street crowd.” Ruffin adds that the ten tracks on Terry Callier At The Earl Of Old Town are, “artistically a preamble and a blueprint of the kind of songs Callier would develop throughout the century. Each one is a direct connection to his inspirational source or a stylistic extension of a hero’s idea.”
The set list at the Earl Of Old Town features a mix of traditional pieces, ballads, blues, jazz, 1960s folk compositions and even a recent pop hit. Callier turned this unique repertoire into deeply personal statements. “Work Song,” which opens the album, is Callier’s rendition of a melody by jazz trumpeter Nat Adderley with lyrics by Chicago-based poet/singer/activist Oscar Brown Jr. His solitary voice and percussive approach to the guitar encapsulate the emotions of a prisoner yearning for home. Callier makes melancholia sound lyrical on Tom Paxton’s “Last Thing On My Mind.” His sense of deep yearning also shapes Jimmy Drew’s “Willie Jean,” with its sparse arrangement being almost a polar opposite of the big band sound on Drew’s 1961 single.
Blues are also prominent throughout the performance, including Callier’s version of Billy Hancock’s “St. Mark’s Blues” and the traditional “Deep Elem Blues.” His take on Chicago blues hero Willie Dixon’s “The Seventh Son” is especially joyous. Other songs convey where Callier would be going in the years to come. “Birdses” showcases his optimistic spirit and inviting sense of humor. The stirring vocal dynamics he brings to “Gallows Pole” would be a hallmark of his performances throughout his life. His take on the R&B and pop single, “Hang On Sloopy” (retitled here as “My Girl Sloopy”), is sung with the depth that he would bring to his later soul records. Ruffin notes that “Four Strong Winds” has “a similar arc and darkness as the Callier classic ‘Lazarus Man,’” which he recorded on his 1998 album Time Peace and would be covered by Tom Jones.
At the time that Joe Segal recorded this album, he had been maintaining the Jazz Showcase in different Chicago locations since 1947 (Wayne Segal runs it today). He initially described what the singer had created, which Callier always appreciated. That description is another reason why the upcoming release of Terry Callier At The Earl Of Old Town should be widely celebrated. “Joe was the first person to say, ‘What you’re doing is folk jazz,” Callier said in 1997. “That’s Joe Segal’s description and I thought, ‘Yeah, that’s it. It’s never the same way twice.’”
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BERN: A VIBRANT AND VITAL, PREVIOUSLY UNISSUED ROY HARGROVE DATE FROM THE INTERNATIONAL JAZZFESTIVAL IN BERN, SWITZERLAND ON MAY 4, 2000, RELEASED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE ROY HARGROVE ESTATE ARRIVES ON VINYL AS EXCLUSIVE RECORD STORE DAY RELEASE ON APRIL 18, 2026
The Grammy award-winning, critically acclaimed trumpeter/bandleader is captured live in Switzerland at the zenith of his artistry with an all-star quintet
SINGLE “CIRCUS” TO BE RELEASED FEBRUARY 4, 2026 ON ALL PLATFORMS
Time Traveler Recordings releases Bern, a previously unissued Roy Hargrove date, showcasing the then 30-year-old trumpeter at the height of his powers. Produced by Zev Feldman and James Batsford, the invaluable recording is being released in partnership with the Roy Hargrove Estate, with the late jazz master’s widow, Aida Brandes-Hargrove, serving as Executive Producer. The deluxe 180-gram, limited-edition LP was recorded by 3sat on May 4, 2000 at the International Jazzfestival Bern, mastered for vinyl by respected engineer Matthew Lutthans at The Mastering Lab in Salina, Kansas and pressed at Optimal Media in Germany. With extensive liner notes by jazz journalist/author Nate Chinen, the album is being released on LP for Record Store Day, April 18, 2026 with CD and digital download versions to follow on April 24.
From the time he burst on the New York jazz scene in 1987 to his tragic passing in 2018 at the young age of 49, Roy Hargrove reigned supreme as the most dynamic and diversified trumpeter and flugelhornist of his generation, as evidenced by his critically acclaimed post-bop recordings as a leader, his pioneering Latin jazz/Afro-Cuban ensemble, Crisol, and his exciting neo-soul/hip-hop recordings with fellow Texan Erykah Badu and with D’ Angelo on the singer’s keyboardist’s magnificent recording, Voodoo.
But as this new release illustrates, Hargrove is a jazz musician at his core; a trumpeter forged in the fundamental fires of Dizzy Gillespie, Clifford Brown and Freddie Hubbard. For co-producer Zev Feldman, this magnificent musical offering captures Hargrove’s artistry in the creative crucible of a live setting, reminding us of the beautiful and beguiling music he left us.
“Roy Hargrove is such an important artist with a legacy that burns bright in our hearts,” Feldman says. ” I love Roy Hargrove, and I just feel honoured to have played a small part in bringing this recording out with the support of Aida Brandes-Hargrove and Robb Patryk of the Roy Hargrove Estate. I’m really thrilled that this music can be released on Time Traveller Recordings in partnership with the estate. This is a big win for all the Roy Hargrove fans out there.”
For Aida Brandes-Hargrove, this album represents a moment in time when Roy Hargrove was at the top of his game. As she writes in the album’s notes, “Roy is so in his element, and the group’s chemistry is through the roof. The recording captures this quintet at its most dynamic and inventive, and I’m thrilled this moment is being preserved; it’s a true snapshot of what made Roy’s live performances so electrifying and mesmerising. Everyone needs to hear it.”
On this splendid recording, Hargrove fronts a quicksilver quintet featuring pianist Larry Willis, drummer Willie Jones, III, bassist Gerald Cannon and alto saxophonist (and Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra member) Sherman Irby. As Nate Chinen writes in his liner notes, “[Hargrove] was 30, precisely a decade into his strikingly successful career as a recording artist and shining herald for a jazz generation. And as the music on this knockout concert recording confirms, he was pushing himself to ever-greater heights, like an elite Alpinist daring to chase a new peak.”
The quintet supports, inspires, instigates and activates Hargrove’s improvisational inventions on the recording’s five tracks, which range from about 10 to 16 minutes, with some songs previously released on Hargrove’s studio recordings, Moment to Moment and The Vibe, along with Manhattan Projects – a 1989 all-star project headed by drummer Carl Allen and a 1961 Impulse! date by Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers.
Driven by Jones’ in-the-pocket drumming, guided by Cannon’s bone-thick basslines, Willis’ elaborate and engaging pianism and Irby’s down-home sax lines, Hargrove’s bravura trumpet tones dance, prance and trance on the fiery, up-tempo Frank Lacy composition, “Stranded.” Hargrove’s fast-paced 4/4 number, “Depth,” is rendered with sublime rhythmic resonance, contrasted by Hargrove’s mellow-toned delivery on the American standard ballad, “Never Let Me Go.” Things get funky on Hargrove’s “Caryisms,” written for pianist and former bandmate Marc Cary, with some zesty quotes from Herbie Hancock’s “Chameleon” and the Meters’ “Cissy Strut.” The album concludes with the south-of-the-border syncopations of an Art Blakey recorded chestnut, “Circus.”
Hargrove’s premature passing ranks among the great tragedies of contemporary jazz history, making every document of his scintillating creativity a cherished treasure. Bern is a crucial addition to that towering legacy, a brilliant reminder of how this modern master seared his way into our musical memories.
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PINNACLE, BUSTER WILLIAMS’ 1975 DEBUT, TO BE REISSUED FOR THE FIRST TIME BY TIME TRAVELER RECORDINGS FOR RECORD STORE DAY 2026
The Legendary Bassist’s Acclaimed First Album, Originally Released on Muse Records, is Part of Time TTR’s Muse Master Edition Series
Available April 18, 180-Gram Vinyl LP Package Includes Notes by Journalist Mike Flynn, Rare Photograph by Raymond Ross
A precious, but previously elusive gem by the brilliant bass player Buster Williams will re-enter the jazz firmament with Time Traveler Recordings’ April 18 reissue of Pinnacle, the NEA Jazz Master’s celebrated 1975 debut album as a leader. The package, an exclusive RSD release on LP, is being reissued for the very first time since its original release. It is the latest instalment in TTR’s Muse Master Edition Series, unearthing the long-lost masterworks from the catalogue of the historic Muse Records. The series is a collaboration with Virgin Music Group and Craft Recordings, spearheaded by TTR co-founder, producer and “Jazz Detective” Zev Feldman.
Remastered AAA directly from the original analogue tapes by Matthew Lutthans at the Mastering Lab in Salina, Kansas, Pinnacle is pressed on 180-gram vinyl by Optimal. It will be issued in a hand-numbered, high-gloss tipon sleeve, featuring a new liner essay by journalist Mike Flynn and a rare period photograph of Williams by Raymond Ross. The package also includes the original 1975 notes by Elliot Meadow, who produced the original session, which was recorded at Blue Rock Studios in NYC.
Thirty-three years old at the time of these August 1975 sessions, Camden, New Jersey native Charles Anthony “Buster” Williams was already an acclaimed and in-demand jazz bassist. He’d spent most of the 1960s touringand recording with Nancy Wilson, also freelancing for the likes of the Jazz Crusaders, Harold Land, and the Miles Davis Quintet—substituting for Ron Carter for several months in 1967—where he met and worked with Herbie Hancock. Williams joined Hancock’s Mwandishi band in 1971, placing him on the cutting edge of the new jazz fusion movement. Pinnacle, recorded after Mwandishi’s breakup, finds Williams still very much informed by that idiom of funky, experimental jazz. The band includes fellow Mwandishi alum Billy Hart on drums and fellow Miles veteran Sonny Fortune on soprano saxophone and flute, along with legendary trumpeter Woody Shaw and a venturesome crew including saxophonist Earl Turbinton, keyboardist Onaje Allan Gumbs and percussionist Guilherme Franco. (Vocalists Suzanne Klewan and Marcus also join on two tracks.)
Williams blazed new trails in the use of electric bass in jazz: “A pioneer among jazz doublers—musicians equally adept on upright and electric bass,” notes Flynn in his new essay. But, while he features his Fender electric bass on the thumping opener “The Hump,” on most of the album Williams plays the acoustic upright bass that had always been his first love. It anchors the darker, funkier journeys the band takes on “Pinnacle” and “Batuki” and sets the swinging tone for the acoustic numbers, the deep spiritual jazz “Noble Eagle” and the breezy, playful “Tayamisha.”
“What I love about the acoustic bass is what I have to do to get music out of it,” Williams muses. “The sound I get depends all on me, not the help of an amp. The instrument relates to my heart; it’s alive, it has emotion, it’s not just a piece of wood.” “Bass players are often described—perhaps unfairly—as the anchor of the band,” writes Flynn. “But in the hands of a master like Buster Williams, the bass becomes something much more: the engine, the heartbeat, the mellifluous core driving the music forward.”
Williams composed four of the album’s five tracks, making Pinnacle a brilliant first showcase for his writing as well as his playing and bandleading. “Buster’s writing abilities have not gone unnoticed in the past,” observes Meadows in his original liner notes for the album. “The writing for this date is fresh and varied. ‘The Hump,’ which should make you get up and do something, contrasts with the haunting serenity of the title song. Then ‘Tayamisha’ (named for Buster’s daughter) is light and airy as opposed to the intensity of ‘Noble Ego.’” A prophetic release, Pinnacle forecasts the subsequent 50 years that Williams has spent balancing forward-looking musical adventures with the bounty and rigour of the tradition. “The title says it all,” writes Flynn. “Pinnacle wasn’t just a debut. It was a statement of arrival—an artist stepping forward from a prolific past into a fearless, unbounded future.” And, under the curation of Time Traveler’s Muse Master Edition Series, it now sounds better than ever.