Vladimir, the percussionist, speaking at a press conference, said that they were happy to present jazz in Bangladesh. He explained how jazz began in France after World War II, when the Americans came to France and made it popular there. He said, 'Jazz developed with the setting up of jazz schools in France and today it is taught along with classical music in the conservatories. After 1945 jazz took up French and other European notes, and what emerged was European jazz which was different from American jazz. On the evenings of June 22 and 23, Blast presented jazz from the 1950s to 2004 so that the people had an overview of European jazz.'

Vladimir added, 'An interesting feature about jazz is that jazz musicians can understand each other very well. Their bands are not like rock bands; they can play in each other's bands and move around to discover new styles of performance. The pieces will differ, according to the musicians. The drummers, guitarist and saxophonists will add their own turn of music. Sometimes there is one leader and others follow and at times all the musicians have equally important roles.'

He said that Blast was born 10 years ago with aim of bringing together a large group of musicians who could play according to the different given opportunities. Sometimes jamming is found in bars and cafes, playing together and improvising on the same tunes. It was during such a session that the members of Blast met to form a group.

Talking about what made them take up jazz rather than any other genre of music, Julien, speaking on behalf of his group said that he chose this type of music as he found it spontaneous and dynamic. Like his counterparts, he had studied conventional music along with jazz courses at the academy. Julien said that jazz was at present quite popular in Europe, perhaps more than even in America, the place where it originated. Jazz, he insisted was for special listeners, who know something of the intricacies of this form if music. 'It is not popular music and in France it represents only 2 percent of the sales. It is music that is aimed more at adults than teenagers, and one knows it is teenagers who buy most of the CDs and records.'

Dwelling on their trips overseas, Julien said that some of them were married and had children so that it required organisation before they ventured out. As jazz is not very commercial music, it is not easy to make a living out of it and many of them have teaching as their second job next to playing in public, getting their students from music schools or through ads. If they had gone in for rock or pop they may have had a better living, but they are committed to jazz and are ready to make the necessary sacrifices. For the members of Blast their music is their passion. As for listening to pop and rock music, they do that sometimes, and at times play those numbers too but the music that they prefer remains non-commercial music specially Jazz.

The group said that they had been exposed to Indian music, such as the sitar and the tabla, and that they would like to play fusion music along with eastern instruments, given the chance.

Their trip to Bangladesh had been sponsored by Alliance Francaise and Qatar Airways.