SWR Big Band and Marc Godfroid - More than Just Friends (2025) [Hi-Res]

Founded in 1951 by Erwin Lehn, the SWR Big Band has been nominated several times for a GRAMMY Award and received the German Jazz Award (Gold) in 2015. Over the years, it has collaborated with artists such as Quincy Jones, Pat Metheny, George Benson, Gary Burton, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Curtis Stigers, Jacob Collier, Patti Austin, Roy Hargrove, Sammy Nestico, Ivan Lins, Paula Morelenbaum, Joo Kraus, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Bob Florence, Rob McConnell, Slide Hampton, Maria Schneider, Frank Foster, Bill Holman and Bob Mintzer. Their 2018 album ‘SWR Big Band live at the Elbphilharmonie’ is one of the label's longest running bestsellers.

The collaboration between Sammy Nestico and the SWR Big Band began in 2004, when the composer was already 80 years old. It soon developed into a real friendship that produced no less than five albums, all of them bestsellers in the SWR catalogue. They also made a significant contribution to raising international awareness of Nestico’s late creative phase. The music he wrote for the SWR Big Band sports both funky sounds and elements of fusion, combining swing, a pinch of soul and an emotional orchestral expression. The music moves artfully between reduced combo sounds and opulent textures. This sense of mutual understanding was created during the decade-plus period of collaboration between the composer and the band, a collaboration built not only on notes, but also on intuition.