The Contraband orchestra was an offshoot of Svoboda's Prague Big Band that existed between the late 1980s and the year 2005. The group was joined by a new generation of jazz musicians who assembled under the name of Contraband Jazz Orchestra during summer jazz workshops where Milan Svoboda was music instructor. The group soon established itself on the music scene nationally and abroad after claiming the Grand Prix award at the international festival in Karlovy Vary in 1988 and the first prize at the Big Band festival in Dortmund the following year. The bands' theatrical jazz-rock shows were a great success at many festivals in Germany (Ost-West Nürnberg, Viersen, Mannheim, Heilbronn, Göttingen, Saarbrücken, Ingolstadt, Trier, Regensburg), in Austria (Vienna, Wiesen, St. Ingbert), in France (Mulhouse, Pau, Metz), in Switzerland (Olten), in Poland (Krakow, Wroclaw) and at all the main music festivals in the Czech Republic. Guest artists who played with Contraband include James Moody, Victor Mendoza, Tony Lakatos and Sigi Finkel. Some of the concerts were broadcasted by television companies such as EBU, WDR, BR 3 and ČT. The orchestra's line-up which Svoboda occasionally increased to full big band format went through several changes before consolidation. During its latest period the group featured a selection of fine jazz musicians such as Kryštof Marek, Martin Kumžák, Pavel Pivarči, Radek Krampl, Milan Krajíc, Marcel Bárta, Přemysl Tomšíček, Jiří Šimek, Filip Spálený and Ivan Audes. Pavel Pivarči, Kryštof Marek and Martin Kumžák contributed many compositions to the ensemble's repertoire. The CDs from this period are "Jen tak dál" (Keep it Up), "Vánoční písně a koledy" (Christmas Songs and Carols), "Live At Viersen", "Pěna dní" (Foam of the Days), "Family" and "Contraband Goes To Town".