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hr-Bigband
The Frankfurt Radio Big Band (hr-Bigband) stands for innovation and variety. It unfolds its activities in a broad range of styles from classical big band jazz to avant-garde jazz and from popular to classical music.
The Frankfurt Radio Big Band is one of the most innovative German jazz ensembles of our times. Its imaginative programmes, quality musicians and high-profile projects have raised the Big Band of the Hessischer Rundfunk (German Public Radio of Hesse) to the Champions League of large ensemble jazz music and have set new musical standards. From swing to the avant-garde, it covers the entire spectrum of jazz, as well as crossing over into classical, pop and world music. Together, projects with talented young musicians and international stars, concerts performances, radio broadcasts and CD recordings make up what the hr-Bigband is today.
The band's days as a "radio dance orchestra" have long past. Today, the Frankfurt Radio Big Band is a celebrated guest at numerous jazz festivals, and itself invites international jazz stars like John Scofield, Gary Burton, Billy Cobham, Django Bates, Oregon or The Bad Plus to perform, driving the development of Big Band music forward with commissions for compositions and arrangement. Thanks to their regular, intensive collaboration to create a tight, homogenous sound ensemble, the Frankfurt Radio Big Band's musicians are ready for any challenge.
Week after week the Frankfurt Radio Big Band covers new musical worlds. In every concert season about 25 new projects take shape, which are performed live in about 50 concerts. Almost no project is to big for the Frankfurt Radio Big Band. World innovations such as the surprising meeting with Gamelan music from Bali or with DJ and electronics are merely attractive challenges for the musicians. All concert projects are recorded live and broadcast on hr2 (the radio program of Radio Frankfurt).
Thanks to the wide range of its musical work, the Frankfurt Radio Bigband has become an irreplaceable part of cultural life in Germany.
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Enrico Pieranunzi & Bert Joris: Chet Remembered
by Chris May
Chet Remembered is the second disc the pianist Enrico Pieranunzi has recorded with a big band in as many years. Both are what used to be called “concept albums." 2022's offering, Blues & Bach (Challenge), was made with the Orchestra Filarmonica Italiana, and celebrated the compositions of John Lewis, mainly those Lewis recorded with the Modern Jazz Quartet. It is a lovely disc. Lovely, too, is Chet Remembered, made with the Frankfurt Radio Big Band, conducted by ...
Continue ReadingSimone Zanchini: The Music Of Nino Rota
by Howard Mandel
"I'm a musician who plays accordeon, not an accordeonist who plays jazz," says Simone Zanchini, proud of a distinction that is substantiated by Nino--his 25th album in the 20 years since his recording debut. Using vast resources drawn from the panoply of music he's studied, discovered, invented and developed for his too often stereotyped and maligned but in truth magnificent instrument, Zanchini embraces and transforms half a dozen already complexly compelling works of the great Italian soundtrack composer Nino Rota, ...
Continue ReadingJim McNeely/Frankfurt Radio Big Band: Rituals
by Jack Bowers
The first thirty-three minutes or so of Rituals, the latest album by the excellent Frankfurt Radio (hr) Big Band, is an homage to Igor Stravinsky's symphonic suite The Rite of Spring, which premiered in Paris in 1913, reimagined “in the Stravinsky spirit" by the group's director, Jim McNeely, in a big-band framework and featuring the acclaimed American tenor saxophonist Chris Potter. The first three movements are designated “Adoration," the next two “Sacrifice," and McNeely has added a sixth, “Rituals Rebirth," ...
Continue ReadingJim McNeely Frankfurt Radio Big Band feat. Chris Potter: Rituals
by Angelo Leonardi
Commissionata dall'Alte Oper Frankfurt a Jim McNeely nell'ambito del festival dedicato a Stravinsky del 2013, quest'originale esecuzione de “Le Sacre du Printemps" è stata registrata due anni dopo in studio e viene pubblicata solo ora. Assieme all'arrangiatore di Chicago, i protagonisti sono Chris Potter al sax tenore e soprano, e la Frankfurt Radio Big Band. La presenza di una figura solista chiarisce da subito che non si tratta di una rivisitazione de “La sagra della primavera" ma ...
Continue ReadingDave Douglas: A Single Sky
by Martin Longley
Here is yet another facet of Dave Douglas, an artist who is constantly seeking fresh discoveries. This album benefits from the full forces of the Frankfurt Radio Big Band (FRB), brashly realizing the composer's large lyricism. Douglas now turns his auteur skills to writing inflated-scale compositions, although his own soloing role is not diminished. His features are frequently the kernel of the operation. The FRB are conducted and arranged by Jim McNeely and the most familiar player ...
Continue ReadingDave Douglas: A Single Sky
by Troy Collins
On his first big band recording, award winning trumpeter, composer, bandleader, and Greenleaf Music label founder Dave Douglas is joined by the Frankfurt Radio Bigband, conducted by composer/arranger Jim McNeely, with whom Douglas studied in the mid-1980s. Presenting a previously unheard facet of Douglas' artistry, A Single Sky features new compositions written expressly for big band, as well as McNeely's nuanced arrangements of a few of Douglas' older tunes, which sheds new light on his earlier work without obscuring the ...
Continue ReadingMeeting Of The Spirits: A Celebration Of The Mahavishnu Orchestra
by Walter Kolosky
There's been a rush of Mahavishnu Orchestra related projects during the last two years. First there was Mahavishnu keyboardist Jan Hammer playing Mahavishnu music with guitarist Jeff Beck in Europe. Then there was the Jeff Richman-produced tribute album, Visions Of An Inner Mounting Apocalypse. There is the ongoing success of the Mahavishnu Project band and its VishnuFest. And just this month, Hammer shows up on the new album from drummer Billy Cobham. There's plenty more too. The ...
Continue ReadingA New Documentary From Filmmaker Michele Brangwen Follows The Musicians Of The NDR Bigband On A Weeklong Creative Journey With Grammy-Nominated trumpeter and composer Tim Hagans
Source:
Lydia Liebman Promotions
The NDR Bigband rehearses and performs “A Conversation," a suite by Hagans, who also conducts and solos. Performers discuss their connection to the music and to each other. The hour-long documentary premieres November 6 on Facebook and November 7 on YouTube. Watch a preview of “A Week in Hamburg: Rehearsing and Performing Tim Hagans’ A Conversation” here. A Week In Hamburg: Rehearsing and Performing Tim Hagans’ “A Conversation” is a new documentary from filmmaker Michele Brangwen that follows GRAMMY- nominated ...
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Alan Broadbent with NDR Bigband Release "America The Beautiful"
Source:
Jan Matthies Music Management
Last year Alan Broadbent, jazz pianist, arranger, conductor and composer released his solo album Heart to Heart for which he received the rarely given best rating of 5-stars by Downbeat magazine (USA) and Jazz Journal (UK). This year on Alan’s 67th birthday on April 23, 2014 his new album together with the NDR Bigband America the Beautiful will see the light of day. The Title America the Beautiful is Alan’s way of giving thanks to the country and its people ...
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Chopin, Bobby McFerrin, NDR Bigband (y Jaques Morelenbaum y Omar Sosa)
Source:
Joan A. Cararach
El 200 aniversario del nacimiento de Fryderyk Chopin va a tener este mes de agosto una especial celebración en el prestigioso Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, con el estreno el próximo 10 de agosto del espectáculo Bobby meets Chopin. Con arreglos y dirección de Gil Goldstein, Bobby McFerrin se ha unido en esta ocasión a la NDR Bigband. Tras los conciertos en Alemania, McFerrin y la NDR se trasladarán a Polonia, donde tocarán en Varsovia y Cracovia.
La NDR Bigband tocará el ...
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Omar Sosa: NDR Bigband CD Release; Winter-Spring 2010 Tour Schedule
Source:
Michael Ricci
NDR Bigband plays Omar Sosa Arranged by Jaques Morelenbaum
Ceremony is a major new project, the fruit of pianist-composer Omar Sosa's first big-band collaboration with composer-arranger-cellist Jaques Morelenbaum, Hamburg's 18piece NDR Bigband (North German Radio / Norddeutscher Rundfunk), and the Omar Sosa Quartet, featuring Julio Barreto (drums, Cuba), Childo Tomas (electric bass, Mozambique), and Marcos Ilukan (Afro-Cuban percussion, Cuba). Sosa himself plays piano and marimba.
Recorded in two sessions (2007 and 2008) at NDR's Hamburg studios, under the direction of ...
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hr-Bigband
Location: Frankfurt
Instrument: Band / ensemble / orchestra
