The new release from Jazz Cerkno Records does not feature concert recordings, although we did hear music from the album Pieces for Collective Change by Rok Zalokar Zhlehtet at last year’s edition of the festival. At that concert, the band, led by pianist Rok Zalokar, premiered a suite for octet. A few months after the performance, the eight musicians went to the studio, where they recorded the songs from the suite – this time not structured as a suite – in a more condensed and compact form. One of the reasons for the studio recording was the desire to slightly shorten the overall duration of the compositions so they would fit on a vinyl record. The album nevertheless includes one track recorded live at the famous Viennese club Porgy & Bess, where the band performed in October 2024 at the showcase festival of Slovenian jazz Step across the border: Slovenia.
Pieces for Collective Change is the tenth release of the collective, which has been active in various formations since 2019 – from a trio to quintet to the current octet – and is also the first release to feature the entire octet. The band members, who play a diverse range of instruments not typically associated with jazz – from gongs to harp to cello – are active both in their own projects as well as in other bands and informal formations. Zhlehtet draws from the tradition of spiritual jazz and combines acoustic and electronic sounds. As the members themselves put it, it is a “cosmic musical dimension of creative expression that combines acoustic sound with electronics and improvisation”. On Pieces for Collective Change, the collective sought to connect the two approaches they pursue: pre-composed compositions by Zalokar and collective improvisation. As a result, over half of the album consists of spontaneously developed compositions. The album was released on vinyl and digital streaming platforms.