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.

Read more: The Hot Box #094 - Jazz in Italy

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

Read more: The Hot Box #093 - The Name Game

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!

Read more: The Hot Box #092 - Guitar All The Way

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.

Read more: The Hot Box #091 - Christmas 2022

The 90th Hot Box

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.

Read more: The Hot Box #090 - New Material XIII

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.

Read more: The Hot Box #089 – All New Recordings

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!

Read more: The Hot Box 088 - All New Material