Veteran American percussionist-drummer-vocalist-composer-bandleader-singer-songwriter-poet-eductor Doug Hammond (b. 1942) was a founding member of the Detroit Creative Musicians Association who played everything from blues and R&B to bop and free jazz and with Smokey Robinson, Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, Steve Coleman and Wolfgang Dauner. But today, he is not nearly as well known as his music warrants, maybe because he opted for a teaching position as a professor at Bruckner University in Linz, Austria in 1989.

Here comes into the picture, Israeli-born, genre-defying composer-trombonist Reut Regev, known for playing in Anthony Braxton’s band and Lawrence ‘Butch’ Morris’ «Conductions», and her partner, drummer Igal Foni, who has been living in New York since 1998. Regev and Foni admired Hammond and he influenced their quartet’s R*time sound and attitude. They met Hammond in Austria and devised the unique collaboration It’s Now: R*time Plays Doug Hammond which was recorded at Tedesco studios in New Jersey in June 2023. Regev and Foni’s daughter, Liana Foni, did the cover artwork.

R*time, with funk guitarist Jean-Paul Bourelly and master double bass player Eric Revis, plays eleven of Hammond’s instrumental compositions and poetic songs, mostly from the seventies, with their well-crafted but often quirky rhythmic and melodic song structures, but with Hammond’s blessing to push the boundaries. The music flows naturally, it is funky, soulful, and spiky, with addictive grooves and inspired, concise solos of Regev and Bourelly, and serves beautifully Hammond’s warm and laid-back delivery and wise and only emotional reflections and insights on life and love. It is much more than a respectful tribute to a living legend. R*time and Hammond sound like a match that was bound to happen.

Eyal Hareuveni

Reut Regev (trombone, flugabone), Igal Foni (drums), Jean-Paul Bourelly (guitar), Eric Revis (bass), Doug Hammond (vocals)