The Hot Box

The Hot Box #77……What’s Inside? Taking a leaf out of the book of jazz station WBGO Newark New Jersey, this edition of The Hot Box presents “Singers Unlimited”.So if vocal jazz sets your pulse racing, this one’s for you. And there’s a little nod in the direction Christmas as well. Every one of these great singers has appeared in Ireland over the years. (And of course, some of them are Irish!)

In The Hot Box number 76 we delve into the Guitar Files labelled “G”.The towering figure of Grant Green seems to dominate this file, maybe the most productive guitarist of the 1960’s, who sounded then, and still sounds, like nobody else. Then we have the young bloods, Alex Goodman from Canada and Riccardo Grilli from Brazil, both fully paid members of the New York jazz scene today. So the 76th Hot...

The Hot Box number 75!What’s in it this time? We have tried to be quite noisy in celebration of our 75th edition - a “milestone”.The celebration starts with the Chuck Owen Jazz Surge with more from Lonnie Smith, Eddie Daniels, The Big Phat Band, and Steve Slagle throughout the show.

The main event in The Hot Box 074 is a move to the Guitar Files Letter F. So we feature 3 greats from that file, Tal Farlow, Bill Frisell and Chris Flory. But there’s other stuff too. An exciting taster from Aoife Doyle’s upcoming new album, the single Strength to be Strong, and a track from Kevin Brady’s Electric Quartet upcoming world release “Plan B”.Plus we find an amazing young guitarist from...

The 73rd episode of The Hot Box……This time around the jazz hour has some swing classics and samples from two new albums that amount to “jazz archaeology”. A compilation of 1930’s recordings by very underappreciated trumpeter and singer Valaida Snow, and a - literally - lost session by the NEA Jazz Master - Sheila Jordan. This episode also breaks the record for the number of tracks played in a Hot...

The exploration of the Guitar Files reaches the Letter E in the 72nd edition of The Hot Box and although few in number, guitarists in this file are very big in reputation, especially for those of us who like the straight-ahead, post bebop styles. The next edition of The Hot Box will be posted in about 2 weeks, and the next Guitar File (the letter F) in September.

A great mix of big band and a nod in the direction of classical influences in jazz, with the first time on Hot Box, tracks from Maria Schneider’s multi-award winning masterpiece Data Lords. And the very last piece of the jigsaw puzzle that enveloped the Jazz Worms.

In this edition we head into the Guitar Files once again, focussing on the letter D. It’s a sparse file, so we’ve looked back and found a couple of fine players omitted from the C file, and looked forward with an appetiser for the E file to come……. And we talk some about the Fund for Phil (https://www.thefundforphil.com/) as well as two other funding endeavours for Nigel Mooney’s upcoming album an...

In the 69th episode of The Hot Box we follow the trail of the Jazz Worms, only to find it leads back to The Fox Inn at Ashbourne, County Meath, via Denver, Colorado. The Worms have just released their second album - after a pause of 30 years! The 69th Hot Box also features music by Brazilian pianist and arranger Antonio Adolfo, and some previously unreleased music from Wes Montgomery and also from...

In this series of glimpses into the world of jazz guitar, Hot Box 68 finds perhaps the most important guitarist of them all - Charlie Christian. He was born in 1916 and sadly died of tuberculosis when just 25 years old, but he’d already established the amplified guitar as a permanent part of the instrumental repertoire of jazz, and gone part of the way in leading jazz out of the Swing Era and into...

After the last edition of Hot Box Xtra, remembering the great Chick Corea (1941 - 2021), Donald Helme returns to some “New Stuff“ with a varied programme from jazz-funk to lush vocals, from the valedictory saxophone of Jimmy Heath to brilliant solo piano.

Chick Corea 1941-2021 A Hot Box Xtra checks out the music of one of the most important musicians in jazz. Sadly, he passed away in February this year aged 79. A pianist, composer and bandleader who visited all corners of the music box from Hispanic to Fusion, from Jazz to Classical. Chick Corea collected an amazing 23 Grammy Awards over his career - probably more than any other musician - deliveri...

  In this edition we once again visit the alphabetical countdown of prominent jazz guitar players, taking a few more filed under the letter B. And we indulge in a little repetition to celebrate Ireland’s guitarist ...

  After too long a gap, The Hot Box returns with tracks from recently released albums by Christian McBride, John Beasley, Chick Corea and the Cuban wonder Harold Lopez Nussa amongst others.

The Hot Box 64th edition…in which we check out guitar players filed under the letter B. The file must run to two editions, so popular is that letter in the array of surnames. The letter B starts to illustrate the diversity and depth of the guitar’s contribution to the jazz music we love.

The 63rd edition of Hot Box reminds us of the importance of Charlie Parker as we celebrate his 100th anniversary, we mark the death of one of the greatest of bass players Gary Peacock, we offer a shout-out for Sonny Rollins whose 90th birthday has just passed, and we revel in a massive re-release of long unavailable albums by the self-taught genius of the piano, Errol Garner. In between all of tha...

The 62nd edition of The Hot Box opens up the guitar files for an alphabetical series that will cover a wide range of eras and styles in the very wide world of the guitar in jazz. By some margin the guitar is the most popular of all musical instruments, and its presence in jazz is no less widespread, blossoming when someone had the bright idea of amplifying its sound. Right now, there are over 30 p...

It seems that this is a time for memories of the great jazz musicians of yesterday who have “left the building” during the current pandemic (but not necessarily as a direct result of it), and in The Hot Box #061 we celebrate the music of saxophonist Jimmy Heath, singer/pianist Freddy Cole and singer Annie Ross. And we find some new music from Brazilian, New York based guitarist Riccardo Grilli.

  The final episode of The Piano Files A-Z. The Z File Not too may surnames start with the letter Z but here we find 4 amazing piano players that give us a wide spectrum of style and content……the majority of tracks included here were recorded live, in front of an audience. Remember those days? Joe Zawinul, the former Miles Davis collaborator and founding member of Weather Report. Denny Zeitlin, pr...

In this episode of the Hot Box we celebrate the life of Jimmy Cobb who died last month aged 91, and legendary pianist McCoy Tyner who recently passed away. We also sample three new albums (*), two of which have diverse Irish interest!

Welcome to The Hot Box #058 in which we delve further into the alphabetical piano files with Part 2 of the File for W. There are some amazing artists in the episode. Be sure to listen out for an interview where Marian McPartland hosts the great Mary Lou Williams on her long running radio show “Piano Jazz” on NPR in October of 1978. It is quite wonderful to hear Mary Lou Williams chat about music a...

Over an hour of jazz music from Ireland, America, South Africa and Brazil, wide ranging in style and mood. You can hear tracks from The Duke Ellington Orchestra, Basil Coatzee, Dianne Schuur, Count Basie Orchestras, Christine Tobin, Scott Flanagan and more.

In this episode of The Hot Box we celebrate the music of four amazing musicians who have sadly left the stage in the past few weeks, Bucky Pizzarelli, Lee Konitz, Wallace Roney and Ellis Marsalis.

Selected for the times we are living in, Xtra tracks from The Hot Box that should immediately improve your blood circulation and set the mood firmly to positive.

In this episode of the Hot Box we celebrate the life and music of Art Blakey whose centennial was not so long ago. We find ourselves in very unfamiliar times, gigs and festivals have been cancelled the wold over which means no work for thousands of jazz musicians who rely on live performances to earn a crust. Perhaps we can help by purchasing their recordings so check out the Jazz Ireland Shop (ht...