NDR Bigband / Steffen Schorn

Everything that counts as sound

The music of Swiss composer, arranger and big-band leader George Gruntz for the NDR orchestra fills entire shelves in the archives – Gruntz (b. 1932 / d. 2013) developed some remarkable projects with the NDR Bigband in particular, but also with the Hanover Radio Philharmonia and the NDR Chor. He combined the musical traditions of the Old World, even those of his native city of Basel, with some of the leading figures in American jazz, such as Thelonius Monk, Charles Mingus and John Coltrane. And in addition he refined this cultural melange as »world music« long before the term was invented.