Monday, 19 October 2026
New sources from Slovenia, Croatia, the United Kingdom and Slovakia
A Slovenian daily newspaper and a Slovenian music magazine document concerts by the Jazzzwio in Ljubljana and Zagreb in October 1982, the earliest known so far in what was then Yugoslavia. They are joined by the British release week of “Cracked Mirrors” and a Slovak report on the duo with Jack DeJohnette in 1994.
In October 1982 the Jazzzwio of Harry Pepl and Werner Pirchner, the Austrian composer and vibraphonist, is documented twice in what was then Yugoslavia. In Zagreb (today Croatia) the duo played in the music salon of the Student Centre. In February 1983 the critic Miro Križič wrote in the Slovenian music magazine “Glasbena mladina” that the combination of Pirchner’s prepared vibraphone and the modern guitar had created “a wealth of musical ideas, rhythms and brilliant improvisations” (translated from the Slovenian).
For Wednesday, 27 October 1982, ŠKUC, the Student Cultural Centre in Ljubljana (today Slovenia), together with the Austrian Cultural Institute in Zagreb, announced a concert by the duo; the Slovenian daily “Delo” printed the notice on the day before and on the day of the concert. These are the earliest dates in Yugoslavia known to the archive so far, three years before the Naissus Jazz festival in Niš, Serbia.
From the United Kingdom comes a trade listing: the music trade magazine Music Week listed “Cracked Mirrors”, the ECM album with Herbert Joos and Jon Christensen, in its issue of Saturday, 27 August 1988, among the new releases of the following week. And in June 1994 the Slovak music magazine “Hudobný život” reported Pepl’s duo with Jack DeJohnette at the Whitsun jazz festival in Raab, Upper Austria, Austria, alongside the Brecker Brothers and the Dave Holland Quartet.
The sources are in the Press archive, the concerts in the Chronology and under Festivals and venues; the originals are available to signed-in users.