‘Paradise Cove’ new album by Lisa Hilton in Peaceful Radio Show 1524
10 January 2023 Artists
Scroll down and click on photo for Lisa’s website.
“I think we all need jazz in our lives these days,” composer, pianist, bandleader & producer Lisa K. Hilton writes in the liner notes for her upcoming December 2 release, Paradise Cove (Ruby Slipper Productions 1028). “From its inception ragtime, jazz and blues were created to boost moods or morale by America’s earliest composers, such as Scott Joplin, Ferdinand ‘Jelly Roll’ Morton or Nick La Rocca in the early 1900s. Our world today desires and deserves a lift after the last couple years, and with the music of Paradise Cove we aim to boost spirits everywhere.” Hilton’s twenty-sixth recording debuts her dynamic new L.I.L.O. Quartet with Hilton on piano, trumpeter Igmar Thomas, bassist Luques Curtis and drummer Obed Calvaire. (L.I.L.O. for their first initials). Hilton has performed with the in-demand bassist regularly for several years, but the charismatic trumpeter, Curtis’s former roommate at Berklee College of Music, is a compelling addition, complimenting Hilton’s fluid style and bluesy riffs. Calvaire, who regularly works with SFJAZZ Collective as well as Wynton Marsalis, contributes considerable creativity to this cohesive band. After recording at The Village Studios in Santa Monica, California Hilton declared, “The L.I.L.O. quartet is my favorite band ever… I bet anyone listening will hear the enjoyment we had!” Hilton chose the title Paradise Cove as a reference to our cultural need to find a ‘cove’ or protected spot in our personal lives on a daily basis to escape, revitalize, or reboot and to create a ‘paradise’ or state of grace amid today’s fast-moving times.
The nine original tracks and two cover tunes range from the expressive melodicism of “Another Simple Sunday With You” and the title track “Paradise Cove” to the wildly upbeat blowing on Dizzy Gillespie’s 1957 jazz classic “Birks’ Works,” Hilton’s own “Blues Vagabond” as well as her “Fast Time Blues.” These tracks exhibit plenty of the quartet’s improvisational fireworks along with some retro vibes. On a quieter note, the wistful cover of Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s 1965 pop hit “What the World Needs Now is Love” and the moving “Storybook Sequel” showcase a band in touch with a range of emotions and performance styles. Hilton also includes a Latin tinge with the exuberant “Cha Cha Cha À La Carte” as well as the trio tune “Mercurial Moments,” which highlights excellent bass soloing by Curtis and exciting drumming by Calvaire. “Mediterranean Dreams” is a more classical piece for the trio while “Night Cap and a Little Chaos” has an enticing noir energy that rounds out these vibrant and well recorded tracks.
Lisa Kristine Hilton is an award-winning American composer, acclaimed jazz pianist, an experienced producer and bandleader. Growing up on California’s beautiful central coast, Hilton was so entranced with the piano that she taught herself to play music with help from a colored keyboard guide, writing her first simple songs around six, before beginning studies in classical and twenty first century music at the age of eight. Attending college in San Francisco, she missed the passion and creativity she had previously experienced in music, and abruptly switched majors and graduated instead with a degree in art. In 1997, Hilton resumed some studies in theory and composition with composer Charles Bernstein, and other professors at UCLA, but Hilton’s art background continues to inform her compositions, previously noting she “paints” compositions using improvisation and harmony, and “sculpts” with rhythmic ideas from different cultures and eras. Hilton remains driven by the quality of musical expression that she initially experienced as a young girl. It is a unique characteristic that is most often noted in her reviews: In DownBeat, Philip Booth wrote, “A deeply expressive style… rich melodies and improvisations… and an appealing impressionism.” In Cicily Janus’s book, The New Face of Jazz: An Intimate Look at Today’s Living Legends and Artists of Tomorrow, the author stated that Hilton has been “compared to some of the best pianists in history.”
The music of Lisa Hilton draws on classical traditions, & twentieth century modernists as well as classic American jazz greats such as Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Horace Silver and Count Basie, as well as blues heroes Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson. She is a prolific composer & performs and records with many of today’s jazz luminaries. Her twenty-six albums sit regularly at the top of the Jazz Week & other jazz radio/streaming charts for the last two decades, #1 on Amazon New releases and drawing over a half million streams on Apple Music, a million streams on Spotify, & three million streams on Pandora.
- and A. With Lisa Hilton On Her New Album P A R A D I S E C O V E
with Lisa Hilton/piano, Igmar Thomas/trumpet, Luques Curtis/bass and Obed Calvaire/drums
Q: You’ve done three jazz trio albums since 2020: More Than Another Day, Transparent Sky and Life Is Beautiful. Tell us about your new L.I.L.O. Quartet and what inspired the format change in your band on your new album PARADISE COVE?
LH: The last two years were difficult and anxious times as we all adjusted to a worldwide pandemic. Although I continued to compose and record, it was challenging just to find a studio as many were still closed. I wasn’t ready to try anything new, so I focused on our trio work, but by 2022 I felt ready to try new things again. I realized that I hadn’t worked in a quartet with trumpet – only with tenor sax – and I got excited about featuring the trumpet more. Our L.I.L.O. Quartet is the first letter of Lisa, Igmar, Luques and Obed, and it’s my favorite band ever!
Q: Wow – that’s good to hear after the stress of the last two years! Where did you record?
LH: In the past, I recorded several albums at Capitol Studios in Hollywood with my engineer Al Schmitt, but Capitol is now closed and my dear engineer has passed away. Since 2020 I have been working at The Village Studios in Santa Monica, California. The staff is friendly, the sound is terrific and I have a wonderful new engineering team too. Times have changed, but I’m thankful that I have been able to continue putting together strong creative teams of musicians, engineers and artists despite the challenges we faced. Each album is extremely collaborative, and I’m lucky to work with so many very talented people every year.
Q: Tell us a bit about your L.I.L.O. Quartet bandmates.
LH: I first played with Luques Curtis in 2018 at the Smithsonian in DC. He’s a great bassist, and he’s also grown a lot since we began working together. I LOVE his soloing on this album! His room – mate at Berklee College of Music was Igmar Thomas, so when I mentioned bringing in a new trumpeter, Igmar was a natural choice. There’s an Americana energy at times to his trumpet improvisations that fits well with my piano, so it was a real treat recording with him. I had been thinking about working with Obed Calvaire for about three years, so I’m glad he was able to join us for this session. Obed is a very creative drummer, and I think he sounds amazing on Paradise Cove. Recording an album is always a lot of work, but we had great energy in the studio, and that resulted in some explosive playing – I bet you can actually ‘hear’ the enjoyment we had!
Q: I noticed you’ve chosen two interesting cover tunes for this album – Dizzy Gillespie’s Birks’ Works, and then the popular Burt Bacharach/Hal David tune What The World Needs Now Is Love. How did those choices come about?
LH: I’m pretty interested in mid-century music where jazz, folk, and the beginnings of rock and roll commingled with a bit with pop. The classic jazz tune “Birk’s Works” was written in 1957. It’s a favorite piece that also allowed our band to light some improvisational fireworks! As for the Bacharach…I’m always reading about musicians, and my sister recently gave me a book that delved into his life and work. Reading that Bacharach sprinkled jazz ideas and harmonies in his pop compositions, led me to try playing some of his tunes. I read that originally Bacharach and his lyricist, Hal David, didn’t feel “What The World Needs Now Is Love” was very strong, but since they recorded it in 1965 it’s been a song for the ages. I asked Igmar to use muted trumpet and I played the piano in a lower octave in this spare arrangement to communicate it’s timeless petition for peace. These two very different cover songs were both created by mid – century American compositional masters, and they seem to me to bookend that fertile musical era that also gave us in 1959 Kind Of Blue by Miles Davis, Time Out by Dave Brubeck and other jazz classics.
Q: What made you choose the title Paradise Cove for the album- did you compose to that as a concept?
LH: I always let the music lead me – I never try and make my composing fit a specific idea or concept like you would a school assignment. Creativity comes from within, but you need to nurture it to see what it will form and where you will be led. While recording, I was struck by how exuberant, high spirited and lively some of the music sounded, while the quieter pieces have an essence that feels healing. The music of Paradise Cove feels like a refuge in our very complex world. A ‘cove’ is a safe or secluded spot and ‘paradise’ is a state of grace or beauty. We hope people everywhere will feel good when they listen to our music – if they do, that would be the greatest gift an artist or musician can give.
Q: It does seem that it we have a lot of new challenges in our world right now….
LH: Artists need to be in tune with what is happening globally and respond to that authentically, but we all need a break from the news too, right? We need to escape, revitalize, reboot and grow. It’s important to find, or create, beauty around us – to nurture a little part of our day that puts a smile on our face. Our music is inspired by different genres, eras, and cultures: it’s jazz that is warm and familiar, but it’s also new and uplifting, & it’s got some awesome playing on it by my bandmates! We hope you love it!
Benno Veugen Lisa Hilton, Paradise Cove, Peaceful Radio, Peaceful Radio Show