Forgotten Ritual

A 2-CD set
Especially through his work in the jazz Avantgarde of the former Soviet Union Anatoly Vapirov is known to friends of improvising music. He was the leading saxophonist and one of the most important composers of Leningrad's contemporary jazz scene.
Due to family reasons - his father and his wife are Bulgarians - in 1985 he moved to Varna in Bulgaria. Since 1992 he has been leading the Varna jazz Festival, which presented a sophisticated program and became an important axis for encounter between jazz musicians from East and West Europe . "In the beginning I was inviting musicians, because I wanted to play with them myself," says Anatoly. "Meanwhile some kind of musical workshop has developed; a laboratory, where musicians from East and West can meet."
In 1974 - still in Soviet times - with the "Bulgarian Rondo" for saxophone and orchestra Vapirov already referred to his Bulgarian roots. As early as the mid-seventies and in opposition to many free-jazz-hardliners, Vapirov included the entire range of classical music, chamber-music, jazz and folklore within his expressive style.
He composed a Concerto for a jazz quartett, mezzosoprano and choir ("Slav Mystery," 1977) as well as a piece for bass, piano, saxophone and string quartett, that reflects the music of Alban Berg ("Lines of Destiny," 1980). His borderline frankness would expose itself likewise in projects with symphony orchestras and Sibirian folklore ensembles.
In the "Fairy Tale Trio" Anatoly plays the soprano saxophone exclusively. The musician, who is also known as a brilliant clarinettist and tenor saxophone player, doesn't blow his trio collegues off the stage. The sound of the soprano saxophone merges most sufficiently with Spassov's kaval.
"I have grown older and maybe a little wiser," he explains. "Good music doesn't come out of unrestricted strenghth and expressivity only, but also out of deep probing."
At the end of our conversation I asked him: "You are driving your car and you pass two hitch-hikers. One of them is John Coltrane and the other is Albert Ayler. But you've got only one seat. Which one do you pick up?" Vapirov: "This seat is already taken. Since 1967. By John Coltrane."