The Hot BoxSince the demise of RTE Lyric’s Jazz Alley, which broadcast every week from the first weekend of the station’s existence until it was axed at the end of 2015, there has been no regular national programme devoted to jazz. The Hot Box aims to fill that gap with former Jazz Alley presenter Donald Helme.
The Hot Box sets the best of Irish recorded jazz in the wider context of the universal language that is jazz worldwide. It tries to emphasise accessability and sheer enjoyment, and is building an audience well beyond the shores of its home country.
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 [AT] jazzireland [DOT] 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.
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.
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.
