Texas Music News — August 11, 2026
Austin jazz guitarist Margaret Slovak is releasing her 1989 quartet album, For the Moment, on vinyl for the first time. She cut the record in New York during her first stint living there. It first reached listeners on CD in 2007, nearly two decades after she recorded it. The album holds eight of her original compositions. She plays electric guitar alongside pianist Fred Hersch, bassist Michael Formanek and drummer Michael Sarin. Vinyl copies arrive in late August at her release shows, then move to Waterloo Records, her website and Bandcamp.
To mark the release, Margaret Slovak plays two shows in Austin with her Texas quartet. That group pairs pianist Terry Bowness with bassist Chris Maresh and drummer Masumi Jones. Austin has long made room for serious jazz. That history runs from Kenny Dorham’s Backyard to newer rooms like Monks Jazz Club. Slovak’s homecoming fits right into that lineage.
Margaret Slovak Brings Two Vinyl Shows to Austin
The quartet launches the vinyl edition of For the Moment at Waterloo Records. The free in-store performance and album signing happens Wednesday, August 26, at 5:30 p.m. The show welcomes all ages at the store’s North Lamar location. Four days later, the group plays a full-length concert at Monks Jazz Club. The show lands Sunday, August 30, in South Austin’s St. Elmo Arts District. Advance tickets run $20 to $30 through Monks Jazz Club.
Slovak also sits for an interview on KOOP-FM’s TeXchromosome Women, hosted by Penny Jo Pullus. It airs Thursday, August 20, at 11 a.m. She’ll carry the celebration east too. Her New York quartet plays Brooklyn’s Soapbox Gallery on Sunday, October 11. A 2009 JazzTimes review of the original CD praised the record’s “delicate, deliberate lines, warm tone and lyrical touch.” That description still fits the record nearly two decades later.
Details at Margaret Slovak’s website.
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