DR Big Band

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The Danish Radio Big Band (DR Big Band), often referred to as the Radioens Big Band is a jazz big band founded in Copenhagen in 1964, when the Copenhagen jazz scene was particularly active, and the city was regularly visited by prominent jazz artists from the USA. Band history Originally called The New Radio Dance Orchestra, in the early years the band was led by Ib Glindemann. But over the next few decades many new faces joined – a succession of striking bandleaders, musicians and guest soloists such as Chris Potter - all of whom helped to develop the band into the experienced ensemble whose record releases and concerts have a devoted following all over the world. Leaders like Thad Jones, Bob Brookmeyer and Jim McNeely, and guest soloists like Miles Davis, Stan Getz and Joe Henderson – along with numerous Danish jazz musicians – were able to make the DR Big Band the institution that Ernie Wilkins said was “probably the best band in Europe.” In 1964 the Danish broadcasting corporation Danmarks Radio (later abbreviated to DR) had a monopoly of both radio and TV broadcasting in Denmark. When DR’s head of entertainment Niels-Jørgen Kaiser decided that DR had to have its own jazz band, it was without regard for economics, but to achieve artistic quality – he wanted national radio to reflect the fact that jazz was very much alive in the Copenhagen clubs. During the first few decades the New Radio Dance Orchestra – which later became the DR Big Band - was therefore able to develo

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