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DAY & NIGHT

Lisa Hilton/SOLO piano
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Nineteen albums in, after working with the top-drawer jazz masters, like Antonio Sanchez, Christian McBride, Nasheet Waits, Sean Jones, Marcus Gilmore, Steve Wilson, Jeremy Pelt, Lewis Nash, Billy Hart, Larry Grenadier, Rudy Royston, and Bobby Militello, among others, LISA HILTON strips her music down to the essentials and returns to the solo format with DAY & NIGHT to be released on the Ruby Slippers Productions label (#1021) with a street date of December 16th 2016 and heading to radio on January 2nd . Hilton was last heard in this setting with her acclaimed 2010 release, NUANCE, which All About Jazz said was “a recording that focuses and captures the exquisite subtleties of life”.

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For this album, Hilton looked to the great American composer Cole Porter—one of her favorite composers, for inspiration, (the CD title DAY & NIGHT is a nod to Porter’s classic, Night and Day). As Hilton noted, “I have always appreciated Cole Porter’s lush melodies and gentle Latin rhythms – and, interestingly, we’re both from small towns!”  (Porter from Peru, Indiana and Hilton in San Luis Obispo, California). Hilton includes a searing and simple take on Porter’s classic, “Begin the Beguine”, which turns wondrously seductive under her touch. Her original tunes, “Stepping into Paradise”, “A Spark in the Night” and “So This is Love” do convey the some of Porter’s cosmopolitan essence, but also embedded in Hilton’s realization of her nine original compositions is the vibrating energy and bluesy soul of fellow composer/pianists “Count” Bill Basie, and Horace Silver. Hilton has wound an underlying concept through the music of DAY & NIGHT.

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Mirroring her solo format, the theme Hilton writes of in her liner notes is introspective: “Day & Night echoes my commitment to discover and savor every day moments: to see the beauty in a day from the first glow of sunrise to the dimming sky at sunset, and to acknowledge and share these these rich times others.”  DAY & NIGHT begins with the upbeat samba charmer, “Caffeinated Culture” before the title track delivers its sophisticated drama. Hilton’s “Seduction” an earlier composition from her NOCTURNAL album—attests to Hilton’s fluid pianistic style, but with traces of the Basie and Silver influences holding sway.

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“Sunrise” and “Sunset on the Beach” both feature Hilton as a strong impressionist—one of the unique qualities of her compositions, while “Dark Sky Day” hints of Hilton’s classical training.Hilton has composed her pieces to treat the traditional in new ways, combining multiple rhythmic and genre ideas as if to try and shine a different light to the scene of a shared cup of coffee, a jostle of memories or the simmer of passions held dear to the heart.

Twenty – three time Grammy winning engineer, Al Schmitt lends his masterful talents to these ten tracks that were recorded at the legendary Capitol Studios in Hollywood – a treat for any audiophile.  There is a remarkable intimacy and immediacy that brings you right inside the sound – Hilton has worked with Schmitt and Grammy award winning Gavin Lurssen, for over a decade.

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Hilton is considered one of the most distinctive composers and pianists in jazz today, her compositions drawing on classical traditions, twentieth century modernists, and the avant-garde as much as they look back to icons of American jazz and blues. Hilton’s blues inflected trans-genre or poly-genre style influences extend beyond jazz legends Thelonious Monk, Count Basie, Horace Silver and Duke Ellington, to include bluesman Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson, minimalists like Steve Reich, current rockers Black Keys or modernists Prokofiev, Stravinsky and Bartok.  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 young Dutch piano virtuoso. In college though, due to the lack of creativity in the program, she became a music school dropout, switching majors and receiving a degree in art instead.  Ever since becoming a professional musician, this background in the fine arts has well informed Hilton’s composition process. “While Louis Armstrong was performing, Monet was painting water lilies and French composers like Debussy were using harmonic ‘impressionism’.  As a composer today, I explore music as art, building the composition with musical elements then ‘painting’ texture and color through various jazz approaches,” Hilton explains. “I might apply Seurat’s pointillism ideas to improvisation, creating new ways of expressing our life today.”

Track List

  1. CAFFEINATED CULTURE / LISA HILTON

  2. DAY AND NIGHT / LISA HILTON

  3. BEGIN THE BEGUINE / COLE PORTER

  4. SUNRISE / LISA HILTON

  5. A SPARK IN THE NIGHT / LISA HILTON

  6. STEPPING INTO PARADISE / LISA HILTON

  7. SEDUTION / LISA HILTON

  8. DARK SKY DAY / LISA HILTON

  9. SO THIS IS LOVE / LISA HILTON

  10. SUNSET ON THE BEACH / LISA HILTON

2016 JAZZ ALBUM OF THE YEAR RUNNER-UP - SOLOPIANO.COM

PRESS

“Perfect Listening music.”  All About Jazz

 

“Lisa Hilton has imbued “Day & Night” with a virtuosity and a nuance of composition and playing that is extraordinary.  Hers is a unique sensibility, incomparable.  The stunningly unexpected places she so seamlessly travels will leave you awestruck, wonderfully paralyzed by beauty and the genius of her artistry.

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Let’s back track a bit.  Two months ago.  After one of my jazz shows at a community radio station here in the middle of nowhere in Western Colorado,  I was driving home late one night, trying to get a handle on “Day & Night.”

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Me, not really listening or following as hard and intently as I’d done when I first got an advance copy, just letting it flow over me. The music not loud but enough volume to fill the car, eyes on the road, the moonlitnightshadows of the back road and the 12,000’ mountain silhouettes on the periphery of my vision.  As majestic as what I was listening to.

Trying to “get it,” to instinctively find what I was hearing.   Only way to go as a DJ who was never a musician, but to whom music is  pretty down to the bone real to me. “Music is not what I do, it’s who I am.”

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The album came to an end as I stopped 30 minutes later at the Hwy 92 turnoff to Crawford.  I shut off the car, lights off, windows down, staring straight ahead into the nightsilence, the last two tracks coming on.  It hit me. I took a breath, a deep one.  A perfectly seamed composition and incredible performance had embraced me with a clarity and understanding that only a few – a very, very few – albums have ever done.  Lisa and her previous work tend to do that. “Day and Night” is pre-eminent.

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I was suddenly “there” with Day & Night, and I haven’t looked back.  As a listener, as a non-musician, you never quite get “there.”  But you can get pretty close, anchoring a tune or an album down where it matters.  Yes, I finally got “Day and Night” on that trip home.  “Getting it” means a lot to a DJ with any kind of chops.  After all, if you don’t get it, how can you play it?

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As a composer and pianist, on this one, on the previous ones, she is simply phenomenal. I am in love with her music.  All of it.  Always have been, always will be.  Thank you, Lisa Hilton.  Again.”
Hugh Carson/KVNF Radio

 

“Beautiful – I’m speechless 5 out of 5 rating.”
SURF RADIO/Hossegor, France

 

“My compliments on this project, rich of  elegance and good energy, with refined technique performances and interesting intuitions.”
Bruno Pollacci/Animajazz/Italy

 

“It takes a very talented and confident artist to record a complete album as a soloist. In the spotlight Hilton’s fingers race around the keys, demanding the best from all the notes.”
Musical Memoirs Jazz Blog/Dee Dee McNeil

 

“Soothing yet complex solo piano music. Hilton likes to spread the wealth of her influences from the simplistic one-note three-times-fast like Count Basie or the meanderings of the complex jazzer Horace Silver. Her penchant for scattering Prokofiev ad Bartok runs is delightful, as is her more ambient Steve Reich-styled dreamscapes.”
Mike Greenblatt/Classical Lite

ZMR.com 2017 # 6 Radio Chart for January 2017

 

“Day & Night just might be the tonic this nation needs…everyday treasures that strengthen the bonds of humankind are intrinsic to the music of Lisa Hilton.”
AXS

 

“Virtuosity aside, one is left simply awestruck and wonderfully paralyzed by beauty.”
KVNF Radio

 

“Hilton is a player in full command of the nuances of her instrument.  In her approach is a welcome expanse of dynamics and tonal variety, enabling her to conjure aural pictures.  Memorably resonant original songs…and gentle pianistic fireworks.”
George Kanzler/Hot House Jazz Guide

 

“A fantastic new CD of Lisa Hilton Night & Day. We love her version of Begin The Beguine.”
Toppy Jazz, the #1 Jazz Station in Europe

 

“Ms. Hilton returns with another CD of solo piano, beautifully played and expressive, with touches of classical mixed in”.
Tom McCarter/KZSU Stanford University

 

“One of my favorite jazz pianists – I like her style- sophisticated.”
FM URIQUIZA/Argentina

 

“Lovely Album! Some of the nicest music I’ve heard this year.”
WUNH Radio

 

“Hilton’s DAY& NIGHT is her best yet… wonderful work!”
Pete Hammond/ 2MAXFM/AUSTRALIA

 

“Straight and well produced solo piano. Always well done!”
WRTC/Bob Parzych

 

“I have liked this artist for many years.”
CKIA/Quebec City/Canada

 

“Hilton’s music is sweet and full of life.”
ANUHEA REFRESHING JAZZ/Hilo, Hawaii

 

“I was immediately drawn into her music…it takes my breath away. I love her music”.
Center Stage with Pamela Kuhn/WGCH

 

“Beautiful sound.”
BondiFM 88.0 NSW/Australia

 

“Keyboard lust.”
MGZC Radio/NC

 

“Hilton explores music as art and paints texture and color through jazz approaches. Her originals convey many of Cole Porter’s compositional integrity.”
Sounds of Timeless Jazz/Paula Edelstein

 

“Pure passion in motion…”
Jazz Quarterly: TasteMaker Honors

 

“Letting it fly with just jazz piano ace Lisa Hilton front & center, you really get a chance to appreciate what a killer pianist she is. Tasty stuff that’s a great centerpiece to her canon.”
Midwest Record

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