During
the past five years it has been my privilege to become friends with pianist and
composer Lisa Hilton,
a lady whose generous and kind spirit is as large as her many musical gifts. On
Thursday, September 30th,
at Buddy Guy’s Legends in
Chicago,
Lisa Hilton
will be performing a benefit concert for The Chicago Lighthouse for People Who
Are Blind or Visually Impaired.
“I have been working with the
blind and visually impaired for about a dozen years. The first time that I
worked with the Junior Blind of America, I didn’t even think about it, it was
just something that I wanted to do. Since then, I have been continually asked to
play for the blind and visually impaired, so I do not remember when I actually
got started,” says Lisa
Hilton.
“I like working with the blind and the visually
impaired, even though I do not known anyone in my life who is, but I always have
a great time when I do something with one of their groups,” she adds.
Whether she is talking about her music or you have to pry out of her the many
charitable acts she has performed over the years, unless you know
Lisa Hilton
personally, have attended one of her concerts or listened to her music, you
might never suspect that she does anything but stroll along the beaches of
Southern California, near her home, play with her dog and play piano simply for
pure personal enjoyment.
It is not so much modesty that creates that
aura about her, as it is; the manner in which she lives out her life and follows
the pathways down which her creative and personal muses lead her.
Ms.
Hilton’s creative muses have brought her wonderful albums such as her twelfth
and new one,
Nuance, a
beautiful collection of original compositions, plus covers of the Billy Joe
Armstrong / Green Day “Wake Me Up When September Ends,” Thelonious Monk’s “Off
Minor,” and “The Thrill Is Gone,” by Roy Hawkins and Rick Darnell.
For her last two
albums, Lisa Hilton
collaborated with some of the finest musicians on the jazz music scene; drummer
Lewis Nash (Stan Getz, Art Farmer), bassist Larry Grenadier (Chick Corea, Chris
Potter, Pat Metheny) and trumpeter Jeremy Pelt (Nancy Wilson, Ravi Coltrane).
Also appearing on those albums were saxophonists; J.D. Allen (Betty Carter, Ron
Carter, Cindy Blackman), Bruce Winston (Herbie Hancock, Slide Hampton, Cassandra
Wilson), Steve Wilson (Billy Childs, Dianne Reeves),
Bobby Militello (Dave Brubeck, Doc Sevrinson),
Eric Marienthal (Chick Corea, Rippingtons) and Ian Tilp. Other musicians who
recorded on Ms. Hilton’s albums during the past few years include, Christian
McBride (bass) who has shared the stage with Diana Krall, McCoy Tyner and Sting,
drummer John Friday (Natalie Cole, Bobby
Caldwell), percussionist Tal Bergman (Joe Zawinul, Rod Stewart and Loreena
McKennitt), guitarist Craig Stull (Celine Dion, Shawn Colvin, Carole King), Phil
Feather on woodwinds, cellist Marston Smith (Barbra Streisand, Stevie Wonder,
Michael Jackson) and violinist Jim Sitterly.
It was during our first
conversation a few years ago that I learned of
Lisa Hilton’s
work with inner city school children in
Los Angeles.
“I did some work with inner city school kids busing them into performances and
stuff. I guess I have done a few things, but I don’t really think about it.
I enjoy giving and primarily working with children and I
would have loved to have had a professional musician come and visit with me when
I was studying music, and I was growing up in a small town (along the central
coast of California), but that never happened. The only guy I remembered who was
brought in, was someone who did rope tricks, lassoing. We didn’t have visiting
musicians and these days there are all kinds of music programs, which I think is
wonderful, but kids with disabilities, don’t even have music programs. I have
got to think, that if I didn’t have my sight, this would probably be even more
important to me. It is important to me. For me to be able to give, a tiny little
speck, of maybe an hour or so of music, fun and inspiration, is exactly what I
would have wanted and I didn’t grow up disabled. It feels really good to be able
to do that.”
Therein, lays the essence of
who Lisa Hilton
is. “I create music, I compose and I play, primarily because I want to
communicate and talk to other people, but the reality is after you are done, you
have to be able to walk around and say, ‘Listen to me. Write about me. Talk
about me (she laughs).’ Actually, composers are trying to communicate. There are
people, who are strictly performers, but primarily an artist is not saying look
at me, they are trying to communicate to the world. It feels really good, to
take the focus off of myself and to do things for other people. It balances
things out,” she says.
While talking to
Lisa Hilton
one always senses a woman, who is deeply moved by those whom she encounters and
those things that she experiences. It could be steam rising from the grates in
New York City at one am, which led to the song “Midnight in Manhattan,” the
title track from her 2006 album, or a walk along a Malibu beach on a cool day,
noticing villas on the shore, water tapping up against her toes and warm sand
beneath her feet, giving birth to songs such as “Malibu Morning,” from
Sunny Day
Theory (2008).
“I think that we are all
connected and we all have experiences that we can draw upon and that connect us.
That is what all artists want, is to have a connection. I am inspired by
anything in life, a waterfall in
Colorado
and I wrote a song about that or falling in love and (it becomes) “So This Is
Love,” (the fifth song on the new album
Nuance).
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