Vinyl Reviews

Review: Time Traveler Reissues of Woody Shaw and Joe Chambers

Robert Ham

04 Feb 2026 — 10 min read

Howdy, friends. I hope this finds you in good spirits on what is, for me anyway, a chilly but lovely February morning. Today's edition of the newsletter dives back into the slowly growing discography of Zev Feldman's imprint Time Traveler Recordings with reissues of two out-of-print gems from the library of Muse Records. But before we get you to the reviews, a quick news roundup.

While we've been refreshing our inbox on the regular in hopes of getting wind of this year's slate of Record Store Day releases, a couple of interesting items came across our proverbial desk. The most important is the news that Terry Currier, the generous and lovely owner of Music Millennium, the oldest record shop in the Pacific Northwest, has decided to sell his beloved business.

He dropped the announcement online yesterday, writing that, "I’m as excited about Music Millennium today as I was the day I stepped into the store. However, it’s time to find a successor to keep Music Millennium going for many years to come. I’ve turned down every offer from developers that have called over the years wanting to buy the building. I want that building to a part of Portland’s landscape forever. Plus, I want Music Millennium to be in it for just as many years."

Hear, hear, Terry. My sincere hope is that someone who understands how important that shop continues to be for the music community here in Portland and around the world will grab this opportunity with both hands and not let go. We'll keep you updated as this news develops.

In other news, the wonderful indie label Graveface Records announced the creation of Graveface Revival Series, a year-long subscriptions series that offers up one title every month of 2026 including, as they write, "albums that were completed but never pressed, titles previously available only on CD or cassette, and LPs that were planned but never released."

The first title to drop in this series is All Lost, the 2006 album by shoegaze band Monster Movie, which was never before released on vinyl. Future entries in the Revival Series include Blue Laws, the 2001 full-length by wildly underrated singer-songwriter T.W. Walsh; ...The Size of Planets, a 2003 album from HALEY, originally released on Chairkickers' Music, the label run by the band Low; and 8213, a never-before-released double-LP by Graveface owner Ryan Manon.

Before we get back to refreshing our inbox and get you to today's reviews, allow me to once again encourage you to consider upgrading to a paid subscription if you haven't made the leap already. It helps support the work we're doing over here sourcing and analyzing and writing about the vinyl reissues that we are lucky enough to get our mitts on. As well, a paid subscription puts you in the running for our monthly vinyl giveaways. So far, one lucky subscriber has received a copy of Neil Young's 2025 Official Release Series Discs 26, 27, 28, and 29 box set and test pressings of the Definitive Sound Series edition of R.E.M.'s Chronic Town and Murmur. We haven't yet decided what this month's giveaway will be, but we promise to make it worth your while. So, if you are feeling inspired to toss a few bucks in our coffers, hit that button below.

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With all that out of the way, let's get to the meat of the matter: today's reviews. Enjoy!

Woody Shaw: Love Dance | Joe Chambers: Double Exposure

Guarantees are few in the world of vinyl collecting, but there is one promise you can take to the bank: If you find a reissue by an artist you like and it has Zev Feldman’s name attached as producer, you should snap it up without a second thought.

Since the mid-’00s, the so-called “jazz detective” has been responsible for some of the best archival releases around, including a staggering number of Record Store Day titles and stunners like Offering: Live at Temple University, a breathtaking document of John Coltrane performing at the titular university in 1966 with his wife Alice on piano, Rashied Ali on drums, and fellow spiritual jazz seeker Pharoah Sanders on tenor saxophone. The key to Feldman’s success is that he only works with the best tapes he can source and the best mastering engineers and lacquer cutters around. It’s a level of quality control that other reissue producers and labels would do well to try to replicate.

Feldman’s unbroken winning streak continued last month with the arrival of two new reissues on his recently established imprint Time Traveler Recordings: Woody Shaw’s 1976 modal jazz masterpiece Love Dance and Joe Chambers’ fascinating 1978 LP Double Exposure. As with the first run of Time Traveler releases, these titles come from the archives of Muse Records, the jazz label started in the early ’70s by former Prestige Records exec Joe Fields. And, true to form for Feldman, they both sound astonishing in these all-analog represses that were remastered by Matthew Lutthans at the Mastering Lab. (If you want to learn more about Time Traveler, check out our interview with Feldman.)

The more immediate pleasures are to be found on Love Dance. Recorded at Blue Rock Studio in 1975 with producer Michael Cuscuna, the album is one of nine LPs that Shaw made for Muse in and around his work for bigger labels like Columbia and Elektra. And it’s one of a pair of records the trumpeter made with what he called his Concert Jazz Ensemble, a deft octet that included, among others, pianist Joe Bonner, bassist Cecil McBee, and trombonist Steve Turre.

As with all of Shaw’s Muse releases, Love Dance focuses on original compositions, with the bandleader generously only putting one of his songs forth for the session (“Zoltan,” his splashy tribute to Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály) and instead choosing a song a piece from two of his bandmates—Bonner’s searching title track and tenor saxophonist Billy Harper's aptly named “Soulfully I Love You (Black Spiritual of Love).” The album is rounded out by the funky “Sunbath,” written by Shaw’s friend, pianist Peggy Stern, and the hard-charging “Obsequious,” which was written for Shaw by longtime associate Larry Young.

Shaw is a strong presence throughout, taking particularly boisterous solos on “Obsequious” and “Soulfully,” but he’s often content to simply be part of the ensemble, harmonizing on the heads of each song and, on “Zoltan,” disappearing almost completely for minutes at a stretch as he lets the rest of his ensemble shine—a wise move considering as many musicians in the mix here. It’s to Lutthans’s credit that listeners will be able to discern the work of each player on the album’s five tracks. The rhythm section seems poised to dominate, as McBee and Bonner are joined by drummer Victor Lewis, conga player Tony Waters, and percussionist Guilherme Franco. But rather than overpower, they provide a tasteful foundation for the horn players to harmonize and vamp upon. Franco, especially, adds filigrees from all manner of shakers, tambourines, bells, and other noisemakers, but they never distract from the rest of the song. The resonant, dynamic, and full sound of this pressing reminded me, at times, of my experience watching Talking Heads’ concert film Stop Making Sense in IMAX: listen closely and you’ll pick up every last detail of these recordings or slip into a fugue state and let the music carry you away.

The liner notes for this reissue carry a small warning about “a minor glitch” in “Love Dance” that Feldman and his team opted to leave alone, as “this appears on the original tape, and we have included it here to ensure that we have an AAA release from start to finish.” I listened to that track at least a dozen times, using my smartphone’s stopwatch to try and catch the exact moment the “glitch” occurs (10:37 according to the liners), and all I could hear was a brief scritch audible for less than a second. I want to say it’s barely worth mentioning but it’s good of the folks responsible for this reissue to get ahead of any online griping that may occur about a particular flaw in the tapes. That one little blip aside, the pressing is without reproach: quiet, flat, and perfectly centered.

Double Exposure might be a tougher sell for the average jazz fan. Originally recorded with producer Frederick Seibert at New York’s C.I. Recording, the album defies all expectations. Chambers, known for his work as a drummer on the likes of Archie Shepp’s Fire Music and the sessions for Miles Davis’s In a Silent Way, primarily plays piano throughout. He’s joined only by Larry Young, who contributes organ and synthesizer parts. It’s occasionally missing the vital interplay that comes from an ensemble being captured live on tape, as tracks like “The Orge” and “Mind Rain,” the two pieces that close out the first side of the LP and flow into one another, required overdubs that somewhat constricted what Chambers and Young played.

The album only achieves proper liftoff in its closing pair of tracks, “Message from Mars” and “Rock Pile.” On both, Chambers returns to his seat behind a drum kit and Young sticks to the Hammond B-3 organ. The combination is downright thrilling, with “Mars” building and dropping like an especially nasty rollercoaster ride, and “Rock Pile” rolling forward with intensity and some wall-shaking notes from Young’s bass pedals.

I truly wish I had an original copy of Double Exposure to reference for this review because I wonder if that 1978 pressing ran as hot as this reissue does. Even after Lutthans’s mastering work and lacquer cutting, the high end is occasionally piercing, especially on the opening tracks on each side, and the sound starts tipping towards distortion during the closing drum/organ duets. Worse still, to these ears anyway, is the tabla in “The Orge” that is recorded in such a way that it sounds like a ticking scratch on the vinyl rather than a percussion instrument. Feldman and Lutthans have never proven themselves to treat a project like this with casual disregard, so I have to imagine this was a result of existing issues with the original master tapes.

Those sonic intrusions are hardly enough to dismiss this reissue of Double Exposure out of hand. Rather, this is another worthy entry into Zev Feldman’s already packed discography of reissues. The good of having this lively, occasionally challenging record back in print far outweighs any minor grievances I might have run into with my particular copy.

Woody Shaw: Love Dance
Time Traveler/Muse 1-LP 180g 33 RPM black vinyl
• All-analog reissue of Woody Shaw’s 1976 album
• Jacket: Stoughton tip-on single pocket
• Inner sleeve: Time Traveler–branded rice-paper-style poly
• Liner notes, insert, or booklet: Double-sided insert with liner notes by Bob Blumenthal; original liner notes by Dan Morgenstern reprinted on back cover
• Source: Analog; “remastered and cut AAA directly from the original tapes”
• Mastering credit: Matthew Lutthans at the Mastering Lab, Salina, KS
• Lacquer cut by: Matthew Lutthans at the Mastering Lab, Salina, KS; “MCL” in deadwax
• Pressed at: Optimal Media, Germany
• Vinyl pressing quality (visual): A
• Vinyl pressing quality (audio): A
• Additional notes: None.

Joe Chambers: Double Exposure
Time Traveler/Muse 1-LP 180g 33 RPM black vinyl
• All-analog reissue of Joe Chambers’s 1978 album
• Jacket: Stoughton tip-on single pocket
• Inner sleeve: Time Traveler–branded rice-paper-style poly
• Liner notes, insert, or booklet: Double-sided insert with liner notes by Bill Milkowski; original liner notes by Bob Blumenthal reprinted on back cover
• Source: Analog; “remastered and cut AAA directly from the original tapes”
• Mastering credit: Matthew Lutthans at the Mastering Lab, Salina, KS
• Lacquer cut by: Matthew Lutthans at the Mastering Lab, Salina, KS; “MCL” in deadwax
• Pressed at: Optimal Media, Germany
• Vinyl pressing quality (visual): A
• Vinyl pressing quality (audio): A
• Additional notes: None.