Hot Club of Portugal
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Hot Club of Portugal ( Hot Clube de Portugal ) is the oldest club of jazz in Portugal and has uninterruptedly developed its activity since 1948. It occupies a cellar in Praça da Alegria (Square of Joy), in Lisbon and it is a must for jazz lovers, offering always high quality musical programming.
With an almost daily programming of concerts [1], the Hot Club of Portugal is a recognized cultural entity in Portugal and abroad and, since the beginning of the 90s, has also a jazz school where the majority of the Portuguese young jazz musicians learned their skills. Many great jazz musicians have played and give seminars in the small cellar in Praça da Alegria and in the School of Music.
It was in March 1948 that Luis Villas-Boas became member number 1 of the Hot Club of Portugal, the first Jazz club created in Portugal. He had been the first to spread the taste for jazz music in Portugal at the microphones of the radio, at the end of 1945, in a program called “Hot Club”. It was then that the idea was born to create an Association with the objective of making this musical expression known and practiced in Portugal.
Part of Fernando Lopes's 1964 film Belarmino is set in the Hot Clube. The small patio at the back shown in the picture below is clearly recognisable
