Updated: March 15, 2022
Born: January 5
Laced with a pulsating West Coast cool energy, the award-winning composer and acclaimed pianist Lisa K. Hiltons’, recordings are imbued with subtle historical references from a wide variety of genres and eras, sounding distinctly twenty-first century and uniquely of her own style. Her compositional inspirations do spring from jazz legends Thelonious Monk, Count Basie, Horace Silver and Duke Ellington, but they also include her favorite bluesmen, Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson, touches of minimalism from the likes Steve Reich, rhythmic swatches from modernists such as Prokofiev and Bartok or chords from rockers like The Black Keys or Green Day – they all hold sway in Hilton’s imagination when she composes.
Originally from a small town on California’s central coast, Hilton studied classical and twentieth-century piano formally from the age of eight, where she was inspired by her great uncle, Willem Bloemendall, (1910-1937), a Dutch piano virtuoso. Hilton accompanied on the piano for her grammar school glee club starting in third grade, later joining orchestra and band on flute, and performed piano scores for high school musicals.
In college though, due to the lack of creativity in the music program, she dropped out, switching majors and receiving a degree in art instead. Since becoming a professional musician though, this background in the arts has informed Hilton’s composition process noting that she “paints” her compositions with harmonic washes and then “sculpts” them with textural and rhythmic ideas
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Read more articlesMarch 29, 2022
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Lisa Hilton "Getaway" Release With Larry Grenadier and Nasheet Waits
May 04, 2012
“Smoking, cooking stuff … one winning wild ride.” —Chris Spector/The Midwest Record 2013
“A wonderful melding of musical worlds.” —George Harris/JazzWeekly 2013
“One of the major voices in the modern jazz community, ” —The Jazz Messenger, 2012
“A true original at the top of her game.” —All About Jazz, 2012
A Lioness of Jazz —JazzReview.com
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