Zev Feldman, 'Jazz Detective'

Zev Feldman, a.k.a. the “Jazz Detective,” has turned his crate-digging passion into a career: He tracks down previously unreleased recordings and jumps through the necessary hoops to get them released, often in lavish packages for his label, Resonance Records. This past Record Store Day featured such Feldman finds as live albums from Bill Evans, Freddie Hubbard, Kenny Dorham and Charles Mingus plus a limited-edition double album of previously unreleased Patsy Cline performances, Imagine That: The Lost Recordings (1954-1963). Feldman also co-produced last year’s incendiary Blue Note release from McToy Tyner and Joe Henderson, Forces of Nature: Live at Slugs. In this expansive conversation, Feldman tells his Jazz Detective origin story and describes how he finds these recordings (or vice versa), he gets specific about the importance of Record Store Day and these projects' tight margins, and he reveals his white whales. (Photo by Jean-Louis Atlan.)