WDR Big Band from Koln -

[Dmitry]

I'll be in Moscow this week and the only Jazz concert that looks remotely interesting is the WDR Big Band from Germany.

I have never heard of it, do you guys know what kind of music to expect?

On the positive note - caviar is REAL CHEAP there.

[A Lark Ascending]

Take a look here:

http://www.wdr.de/radio/orchester/big_band/index_en.html

They've played with all sorts of people. There's a long list of who they've made CDs with there. The one I know is the Gianluigi Trovesi Dedalo recording which is excellent.

I have the several recordings with the NDR big band on and have seen them with Abdullah Ibrahim. Quite excellent.

I'd imagine the other German radio orchestras are of a similar quality.

Probably depends on what they're playing.

Here's a taste of what they WDR are doing in Germany in March:

»Percussion and Horns«

Mike Manieri, Vibraphon/Marimba

Andy Narell, steel dr

Peter Erskine, dr

Don Alias, perc

Airto Moreira, perc

WDR Big Band Cologne

Leader and arrangement: Vince Mendoza

»Jimy Hendrix Project «

Wednesday, 26th May 2004

Hiram Bullock, voc, guitar

Billy Cobham, dr

Stefan Rademacher, el. bass

Bernd Lechtenfeld, Ltg

Christopher Dell, vib

»TRIBUTE TO BILLIE HOLIDAY«

Nnenna Freelon, voc

Dennis Mackrel, dr

»BRAZIL TODAY«

Joyce, voc

Marcio Bahia, dr

Mingo Araujo, perc

Edited February 21, 2004 by Bev Stapleton

[SGUD missile]

The WDR big band is a state supported ensemble that is based in Koln Germany ( sorry, no umlauts ) that in addition to the artists mentioned previously, is often a venue for such Americans as Bill Holman, Maria Schnieder, Jim McNeely , Brookmeyer ..and others.

It is a great and very flexible band with many fine soloists ..

[tjobbe]

Hi Dmitry,

as Bev said... they played with a lot of musicians ad are a kind of institutioin here in Köln (@SCUD Missile: here's you Umlaut for Cut&Paste... you can store it somewhere).. they also play with local musicians and even sometimes do sessions in the Cologne Carneval season or for TV Shows

The BigBad is led sinds few month by Mike Abene and they did a well received intro concert ...

I heard them few times when dutch Jerry van Rooyen led the band... they where competing against Herbolzheimers RC&B at that time for th title "Best BigBand"

Cheers, Tjobbe

[Serioza]

was searching some info on WDR band and came across this old thread:

I have record of their concert in Moscow somewhere that was good one

[BillF]

There's a wealth of WDR Big Band material on YouTube.

[Big Beat Steve]

It is a great and very flexible band with many fine soloists ..

As with all those radio big bands this demands qualification: Those bands (including the WDR one) CAN be great jazz-wise but they also get to play (and perfom in public) a lot of rather run-of-the-mill mass-appeal MOR "popular" stuff (except that non-jazz big band music today invariably isn't even "popular", except with a certain older and very sedate set, but rather a sort of slightly sophisticated elevator music :D).

So don't go by the band name (that can be VERY misleading) but by the program they will actually perform.

[king ubu]

Some of the most interesting music I know of, performed and recorded by both the WDR Big Band and the NDR Big Band (one at a time only) can be found on the 10CD Box Set by George Gruntz, Radio Days (TCB). It can't be found anywhere online, it seems. It was released I think in 2007 and has been around for quite acceptable prizes (50€ range).

Recommended if you can find it!

[Claude]

In Germany, almost every federal Land has it's own public radio station, and some of these stations have their own jazz band (big or smaller), which have always been among the driving forces of the german jazz scene, as well as an interesting source of employment for national talents, just as radio symphony orchestras are for classical musicians.

An essential document of the work of such a radio band is the ECM collection "Atmospheric Conditions Permitting" with recordings by the Jazzensemble des Hessischen Rundfunks, with many international guests:

http://www.ecmrecords.com/Catalogue/ECM/1500/1549.php

Edited July 24, 2009 by Claude