  An approach to QCD vacuum as a medium describable in terms of statistical
ensemble of almost everywhere homogeneous Abelian (anti-)self-dual gluon fields
is briefly reviewed. These fields play the role of the confining medium for
color charged fields as well as underline the mechanism of realization of
chiral $SU_{\rm L}(N_f)\times SU_{\rm R}(N_f)$ and $U_A(1)$ symmetries.
Hadronization formalism based on this ensemble leads to manifestly defined
quantum effective meson action. Strong, electromagnetic and weak interactions
of mesons are represented in the action in terms of nonlocal $n$-point
interaction vertices given by the quark-gluon loops averaged over the
background ensemble. New systematic results for the mass spectrum and decay
constants of radially excited light, heavy-light mesons and heavy quarkonia are
presented. Interrelation between the present approach, models based on ideas of
soft wall AdS/QCD, light front holographic QCD, and the picture of harmonic
confinement is outlined.
