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.

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Track list for The Hot Box #094 - Jazz in Italy

1. Mai Mai Mai by the Circolo Jazz Band

2. Cina Cina by the Maestri del Ritmo

3. A Flower is a Lovesome Thing:  Enrico Pieranunzi

4. Original Composition:  Enrico Pieranunzi

5. El Pueblo:  Giovanni Mirabassi

6. I Got Plenty O’Nuttin: Paulo Fresu

7. Dear Tucci:  Rosario Giuliani

8. What’s New?  Francesco Cafiso

9. Sun Bay: Enrico Rava & Stefano Bollani

10. Il Carnevale Di Tito: Dado Moroni

Author: Donald Helme

Donald presented Jazz Alley, Ireland’s number one jazz show, on RTE Lyric FM from the station’s first week on air until the end of 2015. “I am not a musician, and have never pretended to be anything other than a lifetime fan with loads of experience and hopefully, good ears.”

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