The Hot Box

It happens to be Ella’s anniversary of her first concert in Ireland and also her birthday. Join Donald for 100% Ella!

As the title suggests, here are some big bands you've never heard of! The Lloyd Ryan Big Band? The Jazz Pacific Orchestra? Ring a bell? All on the 119th Hot Box!

The Hot Box #118

Your latest edition of The Hot Box with Donald Helme. Put the kettle on, sit back and relax with #117!

Keeping you all in suspense as to what happened Hot Box #115, heres episode #116!

John Pizzarelli, Bobby Short and Mose Allison. All will be revealed on The Hot Box #114!

Our delve into new releases for our first edition of 2024. Happy New Year!

Donald Helme brings you a festive Hot Box. Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year.

The latest edition of the ever popular "Hot Box".

The clarinet has been an endangered species for most of the last 50 years, and despite much admiration for modern-day exponents such as Anat Cohen, it remains on the outer fringes of jazz. Hot Box takes a look at clarinet from the heyday of Benny Goodman, Sidney Bechet and Jimmie Noone through to today’s most admired exponent, Anat Cohen. Some critics have suggested its decline is due to the difficulty of playing it: “It was invented by three people who never met each other” was the comment of Basie band sax player Frank Wess!

After the great reaction to Hot Box 108’s focus on big bands, we felt that a second dip into this big reservoir of music was advisable, if not inevitable. Some of the best ever herein!

Big Bands! A selection of recordings of big bands modern and not-so modern.

The Hot Box 87 - in which we celebrate some of the best female jazz artists past and presentScratching the surface in just an hour, we can listen to a few of the female jazz musicians that have been prominent, but in such a talented minority, for the 100 or so years of jazz music.

A plethora of all-new material this time around in The Hot Box 086 including a great set from John Donegan’s Irish Sextet and the long awaited blues bonanza on Nigel Mooney’s Mooney’s Blues.

And the Hot Box gets to number 85!This time, a few samples from the Jazz Times’s Top 10 albums of the 1980s, together with a review of the new Palmetto release by baritone and clarinet star Brian Landrus. And the third and final track, never before heard, of the Louis Stewart/Honor Heffernan acoustic session.

This edition is full to bursting with new material, and includes another track - never before heard -from Honor Heffernan and Louis Stewart, as well two new ECM releases and pieces from the first volume of the all-guitar tribute to Pat Martino on the High Note label.

The Hot Box 83 “The Nostalgia Show” all started with a listener request to look at some of the music that ignited a whole new era for jazz audiences, the last of the 50s and the full post-bop era.

In this episode of The Hot Box there is an hour-plus of new recordings from at home and abroad, celebrating the return to both collective recording and live performance.

This episode of the Hot Box sets the scene for Jazz Legends – Charles Mingus 100th and Miles Davis Kind of Blue.  21st April – National Concert Hall – Dublin (https://publish.blubrry.com/s-505872/episode/new/jazz-events/concert/4351-jazz-legends-charles-mingus-100th-and-miles-davis-kind-of-blue.html)22nd April – Cork Opera House – Cork City (https://publish.blubrry.com/s-505872/episode/new/jazz-events/concert/4352-jazz-legends-charles-mingus-100th-and-miles-davis-kind-of-blue.html)On the centenary of his birth, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra & Big Band pays tribute to Charles Mingus. In an imaginative first, the RTÉ CO has joined forces with its counterpart the BBC Concert Orchestra to commission a special set of brand-new orchestrations from Guy Barker, allowing both orchestras to do full justice to one of the greatest jazz musicians of them all.

A complete departure for our 80th birthday, with wall-to-wall vocal groups, stimulated by a positive reaction to the all-vocal content of the 77th Hot Box. So, for the first time, we have an hour of the best harmony vocalising in jazz, from the streets of New Orleans to Carnegie Hall.

Once again, the central preoccupation is the amazing roster of guitar players, this time those filed under the letter H. And under that heading the music world was blessed for many years with the presence of Jim Hall. So there’s some great straight ahead jazz from him, and some less straight ahead from Joel Harrison and Charlie Hunter.

Listen back to the live broadcast of The Hot Box on Jazz Radio Ireland for New Year’s Eve 2021. This is a 2-hour special edition of The Hot Box presented by Donald Helme.

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 Box is rich in contrasting styles.

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 D file who has just come to our attention, Graham Dechter, from his new album “Major Influence”.

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 Box!

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 and Jazz Ireland.

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 the German big band leader Kurt Edelhagen.   Irish diva Carmel McCreagh rounds things out.

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 Bebop and modern jazz. Other prominent players in the “C” file include Larry Coryell, Steve Cardenas and Philip Catherine. An hour of guitar with a wide range of styles.

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 - delivering almost 90 recorded albums during his 60 plus years as a professional. He had played concerts in Ireland on several occasions. Footnote: Since this programme was recorded, the 2021 Grammys were announced March 14, and Chick Corea received posthumously two more awards, for Best Improvised Jazz Solo (All Blues - included in this tribute show) and the album Trilogy 2 in which it featured.

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.

Stimulated by the upcoming release of John Donegan’s album Light Streams featuring his Irish Sextet, Hot Box 107 checks out some new releases, and a couple of returns to recent albums for a second look.

Hot on the heels of a little exploration of the role of the Hammond organ in jazz (HB104) a listener suggested we take a look at the role of another “minority” instrument in jazz music - the vibraphone. So we have. Starting at the beginning we hear from Lionel Hampton through to some modern-day masters like Warren Wolf and Stefan Harris. And we find Roger Beaujolais along the way. Who?

This edition of the Hot Box is comprised 9 pieces of new material, with all of it coming from USA and Canada.

In which we devote over an hour to the Hammond organ! In vogue during the 1960s and having star exponents like Jimmy Smith, and latterly Joey DeFrancesco, the Hammond B3 occupied a secure slot in instrumental jazz. Has it lost that? Hot Box this time is Organic!

Tony Bennett died on July 21st, aged 96, representing in a very real sense “the end of an era”. Across much of the history of crooning and singing jazz, Bennett succeeded in transferring a reputation amongst older fans of the Great American Songbook to an entirely new generation. He never lost his conviction that good music, good songs would eventually triumph. Hot Box 103 peeks into his enormous catalogue………

Some jazz journalists have been using phrases like “the end of an era” since the death of Wayne Shorter and Ahmad Jamal. In this Hot Box we pay tribute to a few of the jazz greats who have left us in recent years…….or stopped performing.

As the title suggests, this is a new record for the hot box. Five fantastic tracks, one hour show! Dollar Brand (Abdullah Ibrahim) kicking things off with 13 minutes of magic.

We made it! 100 episodes of The Hot Box. Thank you to all our listeners and subscribers for sticking with me. In this episode we feature two tracks from our good friend Linley Hamilton, with Gerry Buckley starting us off. The new Hot Box website is now online, http://www.hotboxjazz.com

This episode brings us one away from 100 epsiodes of The Hox Box. Included this week are some new releases and two tracks from the Canadian jazz pianist Oscar Peterson.

New Stuff! Its Donald's first show on JazzÉIRE!. This show features all new releases for this Hot Box www.jazzeireradio.com

After the great reaction to Hot Box 96, we decided to do a second edition devoted to the fantastic 42 volume series of solo piano recitals known as the Maybeck Series. Recorded over 6 years from 1990 to 1996, the concerts took place in the wood lined hall designed by the now iconic architect Bernard Maybeck, with just 50 seats in the audience and a perfectly tuned Yamaha grand piano.Long unavailable on LP or CD it is now available on Spotify, but here Donald takes us through more of the stellar pianists who featured - Gerry Wiggins, Toshiko Akyoshi, Cedar Walton and more.

The 96th edition of The Hot Box!This an all-piano affair that marks the re-release (on Spotify) of all 42 albums recorded in the 90’s, of the solo piano recitals branded as The Maybeck Recitals. Recorded by the independent Concord Jazz label, they present a who’s who of jazz pianists of the last decade of the last century. The real biggies aren’t there - the Herbie Hancocks, the Oscar Petersons - perhaps Concord couldn’t afford their fees - but taken overall the recordings represent a diversity of brilliance. From stride to modernism.In this edition we sample 9 of the players, from JoAnne Brackeen to Jim McNeely, and have cause to celebrate the amazing acoustics of the hall itself - lined with rosewood panels and an audience of only 50 - and the Yamaha grand piano at its centre. If the very best piano music is your bag, tune in to The Hot Box.

The Hot Box 95: What’s in it? Some great new music that’s what. Two from America, one from Belgium, and two from Ireland. The album Tim Fitzgerald’s Full House was awarded to Daniel Cervigni who emailed Donald@jazzireland.ie, and now you can contact Donald to “win” the copy of Chick Corea’s Acoustic Band double album “Live”, which marks the second anniversary of Chick’s death.

The Box goes abroad this time, heading south east to Italy, where some exceptional and distinctive jazz can be found. In this edition we highlight the marked attention to lyricism which informs so much Italian jazz, as though perhaps the traditions of Italy’s great classical tradition and opera lie beneath much of the contemporary jazz scene. We start however at the inception of jazz in Italy, banned as it was by the Fascist regime in the 1930s.

Why do some bands choose brand names rather than the name of their leader? A very brief investigation in the Hot Box #093.

The 92nd Hot Box is hot with guitars all the way. And there’s a reason. The new album from Chicago-based guitarist Tim Fitzgerald. Better still, you could become the lucky owner of a copy. An album that has been Album of the Month in Downbeat with a four and a half star review! So check in to the Box and see how you could get lucky!

The 91st Hot Box takes a look at Christmas (already!)A selection of jazz from all eras that celebrates or satirises Christmas from the personal collection of Donald Helme.

A cornucopia of delights from new recordings makes up the 66-odd minutes of this edition, starting out with a track from one of the new jazz superstars.

Tracks this time are exclusively (well almost) from brand shiny new albums. The exception sadly is another of those remembrance pieces, this time for the singer Tina May who died earlier this year.

In the 87th Hot Box we scratched the surface of the hot topic of females in jazz, and now we to try to go a little deeper, so the 88th picks out some more women whose contribution to jazz has been stellar. And then we take a listen to an extract from the famous Piano Jazz series presented by Marian McPartland, in the studio with her friend, the legendary Mary Lou Williams.We’re still only scratching the surface, or as one of our chosen songs says, Scratchin’ in the Gravel!

A plethora of all-new material this time around in The Hot Box 086 including a great set from John Donegan’s Irish Sextet and the long awaited blues bonanza on Nigel Mooney’s Mooney’s Blues.

And the Hot Box gets to number 85!This time, a few samples from the Jazz Times’s Top 10 albums of the 1980s, together with a review of the new Palmetto release by baritone and clarinet star Brian Landrus. And the third and final track, never before heard, of the Louis Stewart/Honor Heffernan acoustic session.

This edition is full to bursting with new material, and includes another track - never before heard -from Honor Heffernan and Louis Stewart, as well two new ECM releases and pieces from the first volume of the all-guitar tribute to Pat Martino on the High Note label.

The Hot Box 83 “The Nostalgia Show” all started with a listener request to look at some of the music that ignited a whole new era for jazz audiences, the last of the 50s and the full post-bop era.

In this episode of The Hot Box there is an hour-plus of new recordings from at home and abroad, celebrating the return to both collective recording and live performance.

This episode of the Hot Box sets the scene for Jazz Legends – Charles Mingus 100th and Miles Davis Kind of Blue.  21st April – National Concert Hall – Dublin (https://publish.blubrry.com/s-505872/episode/new/jazz-events/concert/4351-jazz-legends-charles-mingus-100th-and-miles-davis-kind-of-blue.html)22nd April – Cork Opera House – Cork City (https://publish.blubrry.com/s-505872/episode/new/jazz-events/concert/4352-jazz-legends-charles-mingus-100th-and-miles-davis-kind-of-blue.html)On the centenary of his birth, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra & Big Band pays tribute to Charles Mingus. In an imaginative first, the RTÉ CO has joined forces with its counterpart the BBC Concert Orchestra to commission a special set of brand-new orchestrations from Guy Barker, allowing both orchestras to do full justice to one of the greatest jazz musicians of them all.

A complete departure for our 80th birthday, with wall-to-wall vocal groups, stimulated by a positive reaction to the all-vocal content of the 77th Hot Box. So, for the first time, we have an hour of the best harmony vocalising in jazz, from the streets of New Orleans to Carnegie Hall.

Once again, the central preoccupation is the amazing roster of guitar players, this time those filed under the letter H. And under that heading the music world was blessed for many years with the presence of Jim Hall. So there’s some great straight ahead jazz from him, and some less straight ahead from Joel Harrison and Charlie Hunter.

Listen back to the live broadcast of The Hot Box on Jazz Radio Ireland for New Year’s Eve 2021. This is a 2-hour special edition of The Hot Box presented by Donald Helme.

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 Box is rich in contrasting styles.

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 D file who has just come to our attention, Graham Dechter, from his new album “Major Influence”.

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 Box!

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 and Jazz Ireland.

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 the German big band leader Kurt Edelhagen.   Irish diva Carmel McCreagh rounds things out.

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 Bebop and modern jazz. Other prominent players in the “C” file include Larry Coryell, Steve Cardenas and Philip Catherine. An hour of guitar with a wide range of styles.

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 - delivering almost 90 recorded albums during his 60 plus years as a professional. He had played concerts in Ireland on several occasions. Footnote: Since this programme was recorded, the 2021 Grammys were announced March 14, and Chick Corea received posthumously two more awards, for Best Improvised Jazz Solo (All Blues - included in this tribute show) and the album Trilogy 2 in which it featured.

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 that some exciting new material, including an album featuring Irish guitarist David O’Rourke.

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 pro or semi-pro guitarists in Ireland who play jazz, although finding their recorded output may be problematic. So, we start with The A File - John Abercrombie, Howard Alden and Laurindo Almeida for starters.

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, professor of Clinical Psychiatry with over 30 jazz albums to his name. Aziza Mustafa Zadeh, classical student fusing jazz with Azerbajani Mugam. Peter Zak, prolific proponent of the Eternal Triangle - his phrase for the jazz piano trio.

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 and list of all the names of bands and musicians she has worked with when she started out as a teenager right the way through to the modern era.

In the 19th edition of The Hot Box we revisit the A – Z of Jazz Piano series focusing on the letter G.You will hear from such greats as Benny Green, Erroll Garner, Robert Glasper, Larry Goldings and many more. Also in The Hot Box #19 we introduce “The Hot Spot” where we feature some new releases hitting the music scene.  We have a track from David Rooney’s debut album “Bound Together” and we will also feature Edel Meade who launches her debut album “Blue Fantasia” on 28th of September just a few days from now in the Bello Bar Dublin. Be sure to check out the event details here: Edel Meade - Blue Fantasia Album Launch (http://www.jazzireland.ie/jazz-events/album-launch/969-edel-meade-blue-fantasia-album-launch.html)

This Hot Box is a special Xtra in memory of John Abercrombie who passed away on August 22, 2017 at the age of 72. In The Hot Box 18 we celebrated “guitar” and though it would be fitting to include an extra special show for Abercrombie. John Abercrombie was an American jazz guitarist, composer and bandleader. His work explored jazz fusion, post bop, free jazz and avant-garde jazz. Abercrombie studied at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. He recorded his debut album, Timeless with Manfred Eicher's ECM label, and recorded principally with this label since then. Abercrombie played with Billy Cobham, Ralph Towner, Jack DeJohnette, Charles Lloyd, Michael Brecker and Randy Brecker. He was known for his spare, understated and eclectic style and his work with organ trios.

In this edition of The Hot Box, Donald Helme rejoices in the rebirth of Dublin Guitar Night (last Tuesday of every month) in its new venue, The Grand Social, and presents a wide ranging soundscape of guitar from Frank Vignola to Laurindo Almeida, from Eric Bibb to Phil Upchurch, and of course, a couple of local heroes too, Hugh Buckley and Nigel Mooney. The guitar is far and away the most popular instrument in blues, rock and jazz, and that is reflected in the audiences it always attracts. Enjoy nearly an hour and a half of guitar in The Hot Box #18.

The 17th iteration of The Hot Box finds us back in pursuit of jazz piano genius by delving into the files, and this time around we have reached the letter F. F finds us in rich territory with Cuban maestro Roberto Fonseca, Italian Antonio Farao with top-drawer US bandmates, and the Flanagans, the late Tommy spelled with an “A”, and the young Irish master Scott, spelled with an “I”. The programme concludes with two tracks from 84 year-old Dave Frishberg, swinging pianist, songwriter and vocalist.

In The Hot Box #16 we take a listen to many of the just-released new albums, and also pay tribute to one of jazz’s most luminous pianists, who died in June from cancer at the age of 60, Geri Allen. Geri featured in Hot Box No.7 when we checked out pianists filed under the letter A! The new material includes a wide range of singers from the latest wonder voice in America, Jazzmeia Horn, to our own Aoife Doyle from her new, self-penned quartet album “Clouds”. Also included are tracks from Diana Krall’s latest album “Turn Up the Quiet”. The show also makes good an omission from Pianists filed under the letter D from Hot Box 12, where tracks from Irish pianist John Donegan were unavailable. John’s new solo album, Jen’s Progress is duly sampled here!

Continuing the epic series on piano players in jazz, Donald has reached the letter E, where he finds one of the most important and influential pianists of all time, Bill Evans. It is probably true that almost all piano players in the modern era have been, to some extent, influenced by Evans. He was something of a prodigy and began earning money from his music whilst still a teenager, but it wasn’t until he was 30, in 1959, and recorded with Miles Davis on the biggest selling jazz album of all time, Kind of Blue, that he reached beyond a small base of aficionados and found a wider public. The Hot Box follows Evans career from Kind of Blue, through the seminal trio recordings made at the Village Vanguard in 1961, to some of his later trios, also taking in important duo performances with Tony Bennett and Jim Hall along the way. The letter E also finds two young pianists of extraordinary skill, Russian born Eldar (now using his second name too, which is Djangerov) and the Californian, Taylor Eigsti. A recording by Brazilian Eliane Elias rounds out almost one and a half hours of Hot Box 15.

This is a BIG Hot Box, responding to the demands of listeners for a Big Band Special. However, it doesn’t contain the standard historic fare of Basie, Ellington and Herman. Instead you’ll find the one-off bands of bassists Ron Carter (celebrating his 80th birthday this year) and Christian McBride, the modern sounds of both Bob Mintzer’s Big Band and The Big Phat Band from Hollywood, California, and from above the 49th Parallel, the Grammy winning band of trombonist Rob McConnell, The Boss Brass. You’ll also find some tracks laid down by Dublin’s Hot House Big Band, now commencing a residency at Harry’s on The Green. As a pause for breath, Hot Box 14 also features new material from Irish jazz singer Edel Meade, from Brazilian singer and pianist Eliane Elias’ new album on Concord, “Dance of Time”, and from New England pianist Pete Malinvarni’s new album “Heaven”. Dare we say… a heavenly set! It runs one and a half hours. Enjoy!

In the 13th edition of The Hot Box, Donald looks for pianists filed under the letter D, and plays pieces from Aaron Diehl, Kenny Drew Jr, and Jim Doherty. Some omissions of course but as a generality, surnames beginning with D seem not to provoke adoption of the piano as an instrument of choice! As widely celebrated, the year 1917 saw the beginning of recorded jazz, but was also the birth year of Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonius Monk. Ella at 100, a 4-CD box has just been released on Verve, and Jon Beasley’s MONK-estra Volume 1 offers some tempting examples of Monk restated for a big orchestra. (Don’t worry, Dizzy comes along in the next Hot Box!) The “Unreliable Memory” in HB13 continues reflections on The Fox Inn in Ashbourne Co. Meath, epicentre of jazz in Ireland in the late 1960s, where unbelievably, Keith Jarrett was in residence for a week at the precise moment he was starting out as a leader, after his popular sideman role with the Charles Lloyd Quartet. And the Fox also hosted one of the most important figures in vocal jazz, Jon Hendrix, on two separate occasions, plus another third of the popular vocal group Lambert, Hendrix & Ross, Scotland’s Annie Ross. New releases of note - superb tenor playing by Chicago’s Jon Irabagon, and the intense vocal experience from Ireland’s own Sue Rynhart, from her brand new album “Signals”. The next Hot Box will be a uniquely BIG Hot Box, with nothing but fully loaded large aggregations.  Tuning up in about 2 weeks!

In the 12th edition of The Hot Box we establish a flashback to jazz events in Ireland in the distant past. In Hot Box 11 we heard how a hotel in Ballsbridge had not one, but two resident jazz groups, and how members of the famous Ray Charles big band used to sit in. "Free jazz for the price of half a pint" said our correspondent, who was an impecunious student in 1964. Now dubbed Unreliable Memories, in the next historic tale, Donald Helme recalls Ireland’s Number 1 location for the presentation of jazz in the late 1960s, The Fox Inn in Ballymadun, Ashbourne, Co. Meath! Purchased by American saxophonist Jim Riley, when the gents toilet was the next door field, and the nightly takings were £5, the remote country pub became a haven for jazz fans for about 6 years, with residencies by the likes of Keith Jarrett, Jon Hendrix , Annie Ross, John Surman, Mal Waldron and Lee Konitz. Hot Box 12 features tracks by Konitz and Waldron, plus a never-before heard piece by Jim Riley himself after he had sold up and settled in Denver, Colorado. Plus new work by guitarist Kevin Eubanks, Hammond exponent Joey DeFrancesco and violinist Christian Garrick.

The 11th edition of The Hot Box takes a new turn on the A-Z of pianists, and digresses to pay tribute to the recently deceased guitar hero Larry Coryell, who died on February 19th, not long after declaring that he wished to come and settle in Ireland! His dislike of the recent political events in the USA were well publicised. He is a sad loss to the jazz world, and The Hot Box has mined the archives for 2 pieces recorded with a quartet (including Fintan O’Neill) in Dublin back in 2004. On the keyboard front, we feature New York-based Dubliner Justin Carroll, both in quartet format on piano and with his well-liked organ trio Organics. Other C pianists are Chick Corea, with his double Grammy-winning album Trilogy, Bill Charlap who has a beautiful new album out entitled Notes from New York, Gerald Clayton, Billy Childs (also a new album, Rebirth), Michel Camilo, and the wildest card, Ray Charles. The latter features on the show in a reminiscence of his band’s stay in Dublin whilst making a movie in Ardmore in 1964. Happily, this month also coincides with a never-before released recording by that big band, of a concert in Zurich in 1961. A great mix of music running 80 minutes.

This time around we have a very special Hot Box for you with Al Ryan as guest presenter. Al Ryan is a well-known Irish trumpeter and broadcaster who now lives in the UK. He was a producer and presenter of jazz programmes for RTE and Lyric FM in Eire, covering of all Ireland’s major festivals, notably Cork Jazz, for nine years. He now broadcasts regularly for BBC Radio Oxford, as well as leading his own 17-piece big band in the UK and Ireland. The Hot Box #010 features new releases from pianist Joey Alexander, Austrian guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel and Japanese trumpeter Takuya Kuroda. Plus tracks from e.s.t to mark ACT music’s 25th birthday, Ella Fitzgerald, Thelonious Monk and Dizzy Gillespie all who celebrate centenaries this year and the Irish fraternity is represented by Paul Dunlea, Linley Hamilton and Boylan, Buckley & Evans. We are still seeking recordings by Irish pianists, so if you know of any, let us know. The Hot Box is released on www.jazzireland.ie every 2 weeks and can be heard on-line around the world. Tell your jazz loving friends, and talk to us direct with comments and suggestions to donald@jazzireland.ie

The A-Z of Jazz Piano: this time - Pianists in the key of B The task of hunting down jazz piano from A to Z is really only just beginning, but B proved to be a most rich seam of artists, and the The Hot Box #9 show may be remarkable for who we had to leave out as much as for those we included. Hear The Bad Plus (yes, yes a bit of a B cheat) and Count Basie, Kenny Barron, Ray Bryant, Jaki Byard and Dave Brubeck amongst an hour long feast of pianists filed under the letter B. And of course, a celebration of the fine pianist from Dublin, Cian Boylan. The Hot Box is released on www.jazzireland.ie every 2 weeks and can be heard on-line around the world. Tell your jazz loving friends, and talk to us direct with comments and suggestions to donald@jazzireland.ie

All singing and all-female version of THE HOT BOX this time around, a rich seam of talent in Ireland and set amongst the best in the world. In this hour expect to find award-winning Charanee Wade and Cecile McLorin Salvant, plus Honor Heffernan, Maria Tecce, Mary Coughlan and Liane Carroll. Vocal performance within jazz can sometimes be “hotly” debated (geddit?) - are you a jazz singer if you don’t scat? Our answer is emphatically yes, it all depends on interpretation, phrasing, harmonisation…….we could go on. Welcome to The Hot Box No 8. We are still seeking recordings by Irish pianists, so if you know of any, let us know. We have a B…Cian Boylan, but more are needed! Contact please donald@jazzireland.ie