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Lisa Hilton: Chalkboard Destiny
by Doug Hall
Not surprisingly, considering the political and social climate existing on the threshold of 2020, pianist and composer Lisa Hilton finds ripe inspiration for material on Chalkboard Destiny. Addressing the point, she writes: “Our future, our destiny, can be continually reshaped—we are not beholden by history or traditional myths, allowing us a freedom in creation." With a stellar line-up of musicians, including JD Allen on tenor sax, Rudy Royston on drums and Luques Curtis on bass, Hilton is set to begin ...
Continue ReadingLisa Hilton: Chalkboard Destiny
by Mike Jurkovic
By finely feathering-in her Pacific cool to a gritty, more urban sense of persistent chaos, Chalkboard Destiny may very well be the ten-song set which places pianist Lisa Hilton well beyond the borders of West Coast fandom and East Coast fetishism and gathers her the wider audience she richly deserves. And here's hoping, because Chalkboard Destiny and the quartet Hilton calls her own--drummer Rudy Royston, bassist Luques Curtis and JD Allen on tenor sax--create a vibe which is ...
Continue ReadingLisa Hilton: Oasis
by Mike Jurkovic
Like whispers of a better place just around the corner if you're prepared to take the ride, the tunes on West Coast mainstay and prolific pianist/composer Lisa Hilton's exciting, well paced Oasis work their way into your listening space and take up residence. They hop, bop and bounce along her keyboard. Hilton, who has enlivened stages across the continent and counts among her jazz influences Horace Silver, Count Basie, and Duke Ellington as well bluesman Muddy Waters, rockers ...
Continue ReadingPiano – Emily Bear, Dan Cray, Lisa Hilton, Emmet Cohen, Julien Labro
by C. Michael Bailey
Like jazz vocal releases, piano-led affairs are legion. The jazz piano combo is a format that is difficult to get either bad or good. Here are five recent releases looking for the latter. Emily Bear Trio Into the Blue Edston Records 2015 The immediate charm of pianist Emily Bear is that she is a mid-teenager...a musically precocious one at that. The 15-year old enfant terrible releases a brief EP, ...
Continue ReadingLisa Hilton: Getaway
by AAJ Italy Staff
Nei suoi CD la Hilton sa bene come mettere in mostra le rilevanti doti di pianista. In Getaway (uscito due anni dopo Underground), attraverso undici composizioni originali e due standard, la forma-canzone è il punto di partenza per una varietà di spunti. Grazie anche alla presenza di una ritmica di livello assoluto, il trio firma un disco convincente animato da un intensa verve ritmica e vivace tensione collettiva. Risulta particolarmente convincente la personale rilettura di “Stormy Monday Blues" dove l'intrinseca ...
Continue ReadingTake Five With Lisa Hilton
by AAJ Staff
Meet Lisa Hilton: Lisa Hilton is considered one of the most distinctive composers and pianists in jazz today. Trained as a classical pianist but with a degree in art, she has created her evocative, individualistic and impressionistic “sound paintings" for over a decade as a leader. In the book, The New Face of Jazz, Hilton was “compared to some of the best pianists in history," her imagistic compositions drawing deeply on classical traditions, twentieth century modernists, and the avant-garde as ...
Continue ReadingLisa Hilton: Getaway
by Dan Bilawsky
Pianist Lisa Hilton has made an art out of balancing the simple and complex. Her work speaks with extreme clarity and serves as a benchmark for a less-is-more style of piano playing that appeals to a wide swath of listeners, but it isn't plain-Jane jazz. Hilton has a way of taking a basic idea and stretching its conceptual fabric to the breaking point. Singsong ideals are twisted, contorted and distorted, and rhythmic ideas are pulled out of focus, blurring the ...
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