Jazz
Composer and Pianist Lisa Hilton: Dolphins, Waterfalls and American
Impressions
Jazz
Composer and Pianist Lisa Hilton: Dolphins, Waterfalls and American
Impressions
In
the six years that this writer has known Jazz composer and pianist Lisa Hilton
and become friends with her, perhaps nothing else has quite captured the essence
of who she is both musically and in her personal life, as much as her original
composition “Waterfall,” from her current album
American Impressions, and the
companion video for the song. That is a pretty bold statement to make,
considering Ms. Hilton has recorded fourteen albums during the past decade. Lisa
Hilton is passionate about nature, she loves to hike and to run and a few years
ago she was troubled by how much of the natural habitat for animals near where
she lives, had been lost due to fires.
The video for “Waterfall,” begins appropriately with the sound of a
waterfall and we see the spray against the rocks. A line appears across the
screen, as Ms. Hilton begins to play the piano and it simply says, “I have
always been inspired by what I see in nature.”
“The whole idea of the script is how I feel. I was
hiking and I saw that the water was moving at different rhythms and speeds as it
came down the hill. This was in the Rockies in Colorado. I hadn’t really noticed
that before. That’s life, it comes in
puddles, pools and swirls and rushes and I think that (director) James Grant was
able to portray that in the video. Everything isn’t literal either. He was
trying to take the ideas that I was trying to express. Today we need to have a
broader definition of nature, because most of us live in urban areas, but we can
find that same kind of stillness or peace. (We
can find) beauty even in an urban sky, it doesn’t have to be in a rural place
like a waterfall. I’m lucky to have one near where I live (and where the video
was filmed), but you can still get that sense of peace and beauty in nature,
even in an urban environment,” she says.
Sitting outside her home in Malibu, she says, “I find
peace and I find answers in nature. I feel close in spirit to nature. It is so
uplifting and it is my own film out there. There is so much to see. Right now I
see a dolphin (she laughs) and there are seagulls flying overhead.
Nature is always there. I just like to see the world around us.”
“I noticed that water travels in a stream at different
speeds and rhythms. I’ve seen that life is like that too,” more thoughts
appearing across the screen and Lisa Hilton’s playing reflects the feel of water
flowing, bubbling along.
“This was the first time that we created a story around
a tune. It is something that I have wanted to do for a while, but you need to
get the performance video first and then behind the scenes video. I felt that I
had the freedom to do that (the song) this time. Whatever I do, I want it to be
my art and so it was great this time to have that freedom. I got to do, what I
thought would communicate what this tune is about,” she says.
As for the title of the album American Impressions, “The
title of an album is always the most difficult process. That’s just a given. I
thought when I finished the album that the (songs) seemed to be impressions or
vignettes. Several critics have said
that I am an impressionist and I think maybe that’s true. I seem to want to
paint pictures or vignettes or solos or short stories about everything. I also
feel very strongly about our birth place for Jazz and Blues and I realize that
so much music has come out of the United States including minimalism and all
sorts of music. I feel pride in that and so often we are trying to find the next
thing that is coming out of this country or that country that I think it is okay
to appreciate the music here in North America. We have a lot here that can still
be explored, embraced, cherished and savored.
Let’s just allow it to grow, instead of always looking for the next
thing, we have to find the next flavor, we have to add the next texture. There
is more to explore with what we have right now or where we are with American
music. I thought about all of the great composers that I have been inspired by
from Miles Davis to Count Basie to Thelonious Monk , on and on, Muddy Waters,
all of the way up to Green Day. I thought that I would like to honor that and
give it that flavor of America. When you think about Gershwin and the New York
that (George) Gershwin wrote about in his music, I have only seen it in movies.
That is the New York of my grandparents’ time and that is not New York today. He
was able to create such a flavor of that bustling and of the huge growth that
was going on at that time, but New York has a different flavor now and so I put
some (music) in there to reflect that kind of flavor. It is just that idea of
embracing what we have in America and not just always looking over our shoulders
for something different and new (editor’s note: George Gershwin was the composer
and Ira Gershwin the lyricist).
I have been a fan for a very long time (of
Impressionism) and now I am searching for new art. In music and in art I am
looking for some new things. What about new Impressionist painters today? What
are they doing? I think they are doing something that is typical, but different.
What I do as an Impressionist and as a musician is something that is similar,
but it is different. Who knows what I am going to do next though (she laughs
softly).
Introduced by Lisa Hilton’s piano, supported by longtime
friend, Larry Grenadier’s upright bass, joined by J.D. Allen’s moody saxophone
and accompanied subtly by drummer Nasheet Waits playing with brushes,
“Accidental Romance,” is a beautiful Standard, but an original one. One might
add that what Ms. Hilton has created is a timeless treasure that will be enjoyed
by future generations of Jazz lovers.
“I wanted to write a Standard and of course it is not a
Standard, because it was not written in 1928 or 1932, but I wanted to write
something with essentially that kind of structure and I wanted it to be
romantic. We aren’t romantic anymore. We aren’t romantic like we were in the
1920s or the 1930s, so I thought I need to make it real for today. I can’t fake
it and I can’t pretend that I am someone whom I am not. What would be romantic
today? If you can be “friends with” a couple of thousand people couldn’t you
have an accidental romance? I tried to create a romantic Standard type of piece
that is seated in real life and something that could happen. It has the flavor
of a traditional song, but it has a twist, it is different. We love the past and
I am not trying to create an old school tradition. I am trying to reference our
history, but to look forward in a new fashion. Our
art needs to reflect what is going on today. There are so many amazing things
that went on in the 20th century, but I really believe they have
reached their fruition and now that we are well established in the 21st
century…the first few years, I didn’t really feel that there was much change or
action going on, but the last couple of years it is whew, we are not looking
back, we are looking forward. I think everyone in the arts feels that this is
new and this is different. I hope that we are (living in) what at some time in
the future will be called The Age of the Arts. We will find peace. We will find
new inspiration and direction through the arts. So much went on in technology
and I think that the arts took a backseat and that’s fine.
There is a lot that went on and I think
that there will be a rediscovery of art. I think that art is a salve for the
soul. I think that we will see more need for art as we keep progressing. It is
going to be an exciting time,” she says.
One of the prettiest songs from
American Impressions is Lisa Hilton’s
“When It Rains,” a song on which Larry Grenadier’s bass playing is exquisite and
I am not sure if we have ever referred to a drummer as elegant, but that is the
feel that Nasheet Waits creates and Lisa Hilton’s playing casts a magical spell
over the listener.
I thought it was a pretty
song and it came to me easily, but my goal in life is not to just write a pretty
song. My goal in life is to write something that has some challenge and interest
on a musical level for me as a composer and as a player. It should also be able
to express something emotionally or personally. My goal is not simply putting
pretty notes together. That is how that song started out.
I thought, I don’t want to do that. It
is a pretty song, but I don’t just want to do something pretty, I want it to be
meaningful. I want it to have guts. I want it to be something adventurous
musically for me. I worked with it and I came up with it and when I came to the
studio, I didn’t know what my very cool New York musician friends would think of
it. I looked at my drummer Nasheet and then I said to Larry my bass player, I
don’t know what we are going to do and Larry said I don’t know either. We ran it
through once and I looked over at the drummer and he had the look of pure bliss
on his face. If you listen, (when Larry plays) he has this beautiful bowed bass
in there that he just came up with in an instant, because neither of us knew
what was going to be the right thing. There is a part at the end that almost
sounds like a seagull or something. It sounds like a bird. It was just
beautiful. The first take was great. I always do more than one take, but it went
down really easily. Many people have said that “When It Rains,” is their
favorite track. Yay!
A side of Lisa Hilton that a lot of people do not get to
see, as she quietly goes about volunteering her time and talents, is her work
with inner city children and with the visually impaired.
“I wanted to get involved with
something that had to do with children and that wasn’t far from my home, so I
got involved with a program that reached out to inner city kids and I also got
involved with a camp for blind children. I thought this is perfect, we can bring
the blind kids to the music programs and I kept suggesting that, but the
university suggested that having the blind children at the camp would be a
liability for the campers. That didn’t sit very well with me, so I made that
personal commitment to reach out and to lend a helping hand to people who can
use a helping hand and who frankly don’t even ask. Along the way, I have been
inspired by so many incredible people. I can tell a million stories, about the
kinds of people that work with people who are visually impaired. The things that
I have been able to experience and the very talented blind children and
musicians and people that I have been around. It ended up being something that
really enriches my life. It started in an unusual way and I just felt that I was
going to commit and to stick with it and one thing has led to another.
It is an incredibly rich part of my life now. I love the kids. I love
them. I feel really lucky. I feel like heaven on earth when I experienced the
kind of openness that I normally do when I am around people who have visual
impairments. It is a very special
experience and I think that we need to understand that we all have some kind of
disability or “impairment.” We see their exterior, but there are many of us who
have issues inside of us, or problems that we grew up with or things that we are
trying to work on. We are able to see someone with a physical disability, but we
all are made equal and we all have things that we have to struggle with.
We are perhaps able to hide it
sometimes. It is very inspiring sometimes to see those who are brilliant, funny,
great individuals and human beings and that happen to have visual impairments.
It has been great to work with them. One thing has led to another. It has been
fun. I ended up getting more out of it than I have extended.
When asked what she thinks
her legacy will be, Lisa Hilton replies, “I hope that I have a legacy (she
laughs). I don’t know, that isn’t for me to write. All I can do is what an
artist does, to be open to what is going on in the world and then try to
translate that to a different medium. What the impressionists did was to
represent the fervor and the passion of what was going on and to look at things
in different ways and (they used) different colors in their art. That was
reflected in a wild and crazy new style of painting that people were incensed
with at first. That is what I am trying to do, is to look at different ways,
almost like a sponge to what is going on in the world and to try and represent
our world through my language of music. If people say they hear what is going on
in the music then I feel that is what I have done is to communicate it. My goal
is never to be the flashiest or the fanciest or ‘oh look at me and my solos.’ I
really care about communicating our lives and to share what is going on with a
waterfall or a subway or an accidental romance (her voice becomes whimsical and
again she laughs softly). That is what I hope.”
Please visit the Lisa Hilton website
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