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!