Space, endless expanses: these are the adventures of the Space Big Band, who travel with a team of seventeen to places that no big band has ever seen before. Space Big Band was named by Danish bassist Kenneth Dahl Knudsen and Latvian saxophonist Toms Rudzinskis. The two got to know each other in Berlin. They hit it off musically and decided to form a band together. Both Knudsen and Rudzinskis had worked for big bands in the past and found that there was a lack of modern, contemporary compositions for such large ensembles. With a host of friends, excellent musicians from Germany, Denmark, Latvia, the USA, Russia, Ukraine, France, Sweden and Austria, they got the project going. The result is the first “Space Big Band” album. The term “space” has a double meaning. Of course, first of all outer space is meant and the history of its exploration. The two bandleaders, who each composed five pieces for the album, include references to inspirations from Galileo to Hawking, early geology and the origin of the earth, Johannes Kepler and the frequencies of planets, but also to current space missions and the history of our knowledge of the cosmos. But there is also “space” in music. It needs space, space for improvisation and collective music-making, as is typical for a contemporary jazz orchestra. The song titles usually make it clear from where the respective piece draws its inspiration. Both composers studied and researched their subject areas, but the songs do not tell unambiguous stories.