CURENT INTERNATIONAL CULTURAL EVENT

Ljubljana has a tradition of holding jazz concerts. Not only because of the oldest jazz festival in Europe, but also because of the regular appearances by the most prominent musicians which have been associated with this type of music. In Ljubljana it was possible to hear concerts of the giants of jazz such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Oscar Peterson, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Keith Jarreth and others. Concerts have been held here of almost all the greatest names in jazz through regular concert events that run throughout the year and, of course, as part of the festival programme.

The jazz festival was born in Bled in 1960, and after several years it moved to Ljubljana, where this year it is celebrating its 40th anniversary (30 June - 3 July 1999). The remarkable annual venue at Krizanke (designed by the renowned Slovene architect Joze Plečnik) offers excellent conditions for concert production organisers. The programme with a jazz concept established in the middle of the eighties began to acquire a different dimension with the appearance of musicians from the New York Latin-Jazz scene, Afro-Cuban jazz concerts and musicians from Brazil.

American musicians will also join the numerous guests at this year's Jazz Festival: the Wallace Roney Quintet,
Marvin »Hannibal« Peterson as a special guest, and Herbie Hancock's Gershwin's World.