The Hot Box

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!