Artist: Rok Zalokar Trio
Label: Radio Študent
Release date: 2013
Running time: 1:18:45
Rating: 4.5/5
Jazz and Slovenia like to walk hand in hand. Especially when it’s not the traditional, conservative kind of jazz, but some interesting fusion. Whether the other ingredient in the cocktail is rock, blues, funk or, as it happens this time, classical. It’s genuinely appealing how the band in question, Rok Zalokar Trio, brings a jazz improviser’s soul into the world of classical (piano) music. If that’s not a sign of modern times, and above all of a bold, fresh take on all kinds of academically learned musical forms, then you won’t find one anywhere.
It actually took Rok Zalokar and the two unnamed guys quite a while to put out their debut. Before the first record, they played everything over and over at countless gigs. Even so, some of the final versions of the tracks are still surprising, precisely because of all that endless improvising at shows (especially Zalokar on keys). You can also tell the band is built around the guy whose name is on the label, Rok, unlike, say, another one of Rok’s projects, Vsemogočni Mlin, which also dropped its debut this year. The keys are what generally kick off and close each song, take over the transitions and little interludes, and basically steer the whole thing. That doesn’t mean bassist Dejan Hudoklin and drummer Jože Cesar don’t have bigger roles on Vol. 1, as the record is called. Quite the opposite – both of their skills are really, really clearly on display. And despite Rok being front and center, they really stand out. In fact, the big advantage RZ3 has over Vsemogočni Mlin is exactly that all the musicians surprise you. Not so much with technical (solo) chops, but with the actual song structures, with more abstract roles, with innovative solutions, with the idea that some parts are improv parts, and finally because the members of Rok’s trio maybe don’t take themselves as seriously, and so as coherently, as the members of Vsemogočni Mlin do. And that’s how the music ends up sounding in the end – a bit disjointed, with a red thread running through the more abstract spheres, but all the more appealing, interesting and unexpected for it.
It’s also really cool how a certain classical-music feeling, one I can’t quite put my finger on, finds its way into this otherwise conglomerate mix that still operates under the jazz banner. This happens mostly in the parts where Zalokar is under the main spotlight and Cesar and Hudoklin accompany him purely for atmosphere, more or less with just a few light accents. In the parts where Rok’s classical playing meets the other two, especially Cesar’s percussion ideas, the music sounds almost like some 70s prog band, but not quite – it keeps something of its own, something that still works exclusively within the territory the trio staked out at the start.
One of the tricks that makes so many atmospheric, genre and stylistic shifts possible is definitely the pauses. Countless pauses. Building stops in the middle of half a track, at the halfway point, at the three-quarter mark. Sometimes, but only sometimes, there are too many. They pile up to the point where they no longer serve the ideas but put the brakes on them. And I’m not talking about braking some fluid development of a theme, but about real overkill. On one hand, these peculiar little pauses, the buildups and the playing around with rhythms, moods and styles that this approach allows, are what adorn and define the band; on the other, they really do halt the album’s higher-level progression as a whole. But only sometimes, and if nothing else, they’ve definitely added a personal stamp that, intentionally or not, marks them as a pretty unique band. So it’s worth mentioning one more way the band breaks up any naive cosiness – Rok’s wild, thunderous hits on the low keys. The ones with fists, totally in the style of, say, Hiromi Uehara. They don’t just smash up the flowing story, they add an air of darkness and mystery. In fact, the whole record lives in those last two tones, and that’s maybe where the biggest difference from Rok Zalokar Trio live lies – the record is much darker than their live music. Not because it’s any less playful, but it’s simply more menacing, somehow ominous. And that also sets it apart from the usual “similar” bands.
One thing is clear – Vol. 1 is a killer record. It sounds fresh, it sounds bold, and it’s packed with so many surprises and themes that totally grab you – but only until the band deliberately hits the brakes and throws us out of our comfort zone. In that sense, Vol. 1 is insanely modern, practically a postmodern album, an album that never lets you forget you’re standing outside the music, one that keeps yanking us out of some pattern, some pleasant monotony, and ultimately out of passivity and mediocrity. Hearing all these improvised tracks in their final, cast-in-concrete state is a little strange, but it works. It works for what an album as such is meant to do, but above all it works afterwards – once the trio steps on stage and fills those developing ideas with their whole improvisational arsenal. And there’s no shortage of arsenal.
Lineup
Jože Cesar – drums
Dejan Hudoklin – bass
Rok Zalokar – piano
Production
Rok Zalokar
Tracklist
1.Liberté! 09:30
2. Bad Neighborhood 04:02
3. Dora 06:07
4. Interlude I 04:02
5. What is the Subconscious? 08:42
6. A Pile of Snow 04:58
7. 4-ka 10:35
8. Tea Time? 07:29
9. Interlude II 03:54
10. Nature can be Fun 07:35
11. Exit 03:15
12. Januareva 08:36
