Doug Hammond is a veteran American composer, drummer, percussionist, bandleader, singer-songwriter, essayist, and educator who is not nearly as well known in the U.S. as his music warrants. That may be largely because he’s been based in Linz, Austria since 1989 as a professor at Bruckner University, making only periodic visits back to his native Detroit.

Reut Regev is a boundary-crossing composer-trombonist born in Israel, living and active in New York City and its metroplex since 1998, noted for four previous albums with drummer and co-leader Igal Foni (her husband), three featuring the quartet R*time, the last two co-starring electric guitarist Jean-Paul Bourelly, all loaded with spiky, funky, free-wheeling originals, performed with a bang.

Meeting Hammond after a concert in Austria, Regev and Foni were delighted to discover the man whose oeuvre they had long admired was equally enamored of their sound and attitude. Correspondence led to It’s Now: R*time Plays Doug Hammond, a unique collaboration setting the eminence’s mature reflections on life, love, and music with the energy to render them timeless.