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The NDR Big Band

There's nothing quite like the NDR Bigband. Unique among Germany’s radio big bands, the NDR Bigband is a jazz ensemble composed of premier soloists of diverse backgrounds and influences whose collective endeavors coalesce to produce an original and striking group sound for a large ensemble.

After leaving behind traditional radio entertainment, prime-time TV shows and the rest of everyday light music, the ensemble has focused their energies on pursuing creative music. From men like long-standing lead saxophonist Herb Geller, a veteran of the West Coast scene, to today’s band members, Frankfurt rhapsodist Christof Lauer on tenor saxophone, abstract expressionist Peter Bolte on alto saxophone, Claus Stötter with all the contemporary trends, the tonal conjuror Ingolf Burkhardt, and the free-thinking avant-gardist Reiner Winterschladen on trumpets, each and every musician contributes his personal array of musical color to the whole, shifting the ensemble’s horizon to the outer regions of the color spectrum.

Known to perform various stylistic programs ranging from swing, latin, to avant-garde, the NDR Bigband sounds different on each occasion, yet retains a unifying character that is immediately recognizable. This was the goal set thirty-five years ago by entrepreneurial editor Wolfgang Kunert and his long-standing bandleader Dieter Glawischnig. In Hamburg, they assembled a top-notch band unlike many other big bands.

Involving celebrated arrangers such as the late Steve Gray, Colin Towns, and Michael Gibbs the NDR Bigband has avoided flights of musical artistry as mere backing for appearances by international celebrities, and instead developed a repertoire featuring the ensemble’s soloists. The NDR Bigband’s concerts have become significant events locally and around the world.

The band’s programs are as multifaceted as its members’ individual tastes and temperaments. Historically, it is from the amalgamation of diverse influences that jazz retains its vitality. The strength to question itself again and again, to come up with fresh answers, and to continue being vibrant and alive is precisely that which makes the NDR Bigband so special.

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15
Album Review

Tim Hagans-NDR Big Band: A Conversation

Read "A Conversation" reviewed by Jack Bowers


A Conversation, by trumpeter Tim Hagans and Germany's superlative NDR Big Band, is really five conversations- -that is, a five-movement concerto composed, arranged and conducted by Hagans who also solos on Movements III, IV and V. Hagans and the band are more than strangers in the night--he has collaborated with NDR for two decades as guest composer, conductor, arranger and soloist. To underscore his purpose, Hagans has grouped the band members not in sections, as is usually done, but in ...

2
Album Review

Tim Hagans - NDR Big Band: A Conversation

Read "A Conversation" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Il trombettista Tim Hagans collabora da un ventennio con la NDR Big Band, distinguendosi non solo in veste di solista ma anche come compositore, orchestratore e direttore d'orchestra. In questo quarto album con l'ensemble di Amburgo presenta il suo lavoro più ambizioso, sperimentando nuove strutture orchestrali in perfetto equilibrio tra modelli tradizionali e libere esplorazioni della forma. L'aspetto più innovativo consiste nella scelta di alterare la classica configurazione della big band in sezioni strumentali a favore di ...

Album Review

NDR Big Band with Michael Moore: Sanctuary

Read "Sanctuary" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Sanctuary rilegge in formato orchestrale dieci composizioni di Moore, già incise in precedenza con sue formazioni; brani che acquisiscono nuove identità grazie agli arrangiamenti dello stesso leader e di tre colleghi: il prestigioso orchestratore olandese Henk Meutgeert e i pianisti/compositori Christian Elsasser e Frank Calberg. Quest'album realizzato con la famosa big band tedesca è un'occasione per riaffermare il valore di Michael Moore sia come solista che come compositore, come fanno altre recenti produzioni discografiche: Cretan ...

Album Review

NDR Big Band: Tall Tales of Jasper County

Read "Tall Tales of Jasper County" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Il nuovo progetto della NDR Big Band non è solo una conferma d'eccellenza ma mette in luce le doti di Dale Wilson, un compositore / orchestratore e professore al Connecticut College che si occupa principalmente di etnomusicologia. Questo è il progetto jazzistico più rilevante della sua carriera. È dedicato al virtuosismo di Fiete Felsch, il primo sax contralto della NDR Big band ed è ispirato dall'amore per Jasper County, la comunità rurale della Georgia da cui proviene.

118
Album Review

The NDR Big Band: The Theatre of Kurt Weill

Read "The Theatre of Kurt Weill" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Although perhaps best known in his native Germany, composer Kurt Weill wrote songs for the musical theatre that transcended boundaries, several of which (“Mack the Knife,” “Speak Low,” “My Ship”) are played often today in many styles and contexts, 100 years after Weill’s birth and half a century after his death, not only in Germany but around the world. The world–class NDR (North German Radio) Big Band pays homage to Weill in his centennial year with songs from half a ...

85
Album Review

The NDR Big Band: Plays Benny Goodman

Read "Plays Benny Goodman" reviewed by Jack Bowers


This charming two–disc set by Germany’s world–class NDR Big Band was recorded in 1998, sixty years after clarinetist Benny Goodman’s legendary concert at Carnegie Hall in New York, and is meant to salute that memorable occasion. It’s not an exact re–creation, thank goodness, but a number of arrangements written especially for the Goodman band were meticulously transcribed from source materials, so what is heard — aside from the soloists, who are emphatically up–to–date — is in essence what was presented ...

126
Album Review

The NDR Big Band: Ellingtonia

Read "Ellingtonia" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Here’s a nourishing slice of Ellingtonia from Germany’s world–class NDR Big Band with several guest artists sitting in to enhance the bill of fare. While some of the names may be unfamiliar to Jazz enthusiasts on this side of the pond, take it from one who’s been listening to big–band Jazz for nearly half a century — they can play. Otherwise, as Duke himself pointed out, “it don’t mean a thing.” As the band is hardly in uncharted waters here, ...

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Concerts

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

A Conversation

Waiting Moon Records
2021

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Sanctuary

Ramboy
2020

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Tall Tales of Jasper...

Inarhyme Records, LLC
2015

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Ellingtonia

ACT Music
1999

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