INTRODUCTION BY YORDAN RUPCHEV

"We kept waiting, we kept waiting for quite a time, and at last we saw it coming", it was with these words that Anatoly Vapirov gave jazz the go ahead in the packed Festival Center exactly one year and two days ago. His dream of bringing about a jazz festival in his own image, no matter how remote the northern lights of St. Petersburg might be, came true. Sunny Varna turned out to more hospitable. And we too lived long enough to see an international jazz festival by the sea in August. Nice and Newport.

We'll continue in the thought, that, at least, Varna became incorporated in the chain of jazz events boosting the homebred jazz, and that at a critical time, when Sopot and Gabrovo only with great effort find strength to keep up the flame, and the Sofia International Jazz Meeting is practically in the state of financial knockdown, of which no one knows if it would recover at all.

It is for this reason that it was so important to have jazz accepted within the "Varna Summer" itinerary. And, moreover, to have accepted the conception of a differed festival - in Bulgarian terms, ofcourse - that is one emphasizing on the liberated, contemporary, self-conceived jazz, a festival that would bring together musicians from various countries and of various generations, united by comparable musical concepts.

If god willing, the organizers were to succeed in carrying into effect all their intentions, then a larger world might be perceived from the height of the second "Varna Summer Jazz" stage, and musicians might feel more at home. And the audience would continue to look up and every year it would be back again to listen to its favorite's. I would like to believe that we'll live long enough to see that too!