Known to listeners as the NDO, it broadcast on the radio daily, usually from recordings made at the Playhouse Theatre in Hulme, Manchester, and on many trips to halls throughout the UK.
The NDO's first conductor was Alyn Ainsworth, who had conducted the BBC's Northern Variety Orchestra.
Ainsworth also wrote some of the band's arrangements together with Pat Nash and Alan Roper, using a standard big band line-up of five saxophones, a flute, four trombones, four trumpets, occasional solo violin, and a rhythm section of piano, double bass, guitar, drums and percussion.
[4] In 2013 another double CD album PURE GOLD 1, was issued with music from the band's beginnings up to around 1966.
As with all the preceding CD's this is being sold at cost, and for this double album donations are encouraged to benefit the Musicians Union Benevolent Fund.