The Lisa Hilton Quintet Returns with the Fluid and Cool
Extended Daydream
LISA HILTON – PIANO
J.D. ALLEN – SAX • IGMAR THOMAS – TRUMPET
RUDY ROYSTON – DRUMS • LUQUES CURTIS – BASS
“Hilton always brings an abundance of the feel-good factor to her recordings, qualities that combine with her cross-genre appeal to make this album another winner.” – Neil Duggan, All About Jazz
“Lisa Hilton has been compared to some of the best pianists in history, but her sound and style are all her own.” – From the book: The New Face Of Jazz by Cicily Janus
“Lisa Hilton is an extraordinary pianist… listeners soon find themselves led into a world all her own, adorned by flights of eloquent melodic lines.” Hot House Jazz
“Renowned for her lyrical touch, inventive compositions, and ability to reinterpret jazz standards with a fresh perspective.” – Jazz Chill
“Like all great artists, Hilton continues to take on new worlds on this impressive journey.” –Jazz Weekly
The Lisa Hilton Quintet returns with Extended Daydream (Ruby Slippers Productions 1031). The award-winning composer and acclaimed pianist generously shares the spotlight with her stellar bandmates on eleven standout tracks. In a natural and genre-fluid approach, Hilton seamlessly combines the renowned 1959 cool jazz classic So What by Miles Davis, alongside the 2024 tune Wildflower by singer/songwriter Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas O’Connell, as well as nine of her own compositions. Although both of the cover tracks are notable, the legendary Davis track begins with Hilton’s wafting modal introduction, which merges gently into the iconic two-note motif before unfurling to the virtuosic intensity of the band. Although Thomas’s and Allen’s horns each treat the listener with their prowess, Curtis holds the band steady with an upbeat intensity, and Royston shines in his percussion role, leaving no doubt this quintet has the ability to subtly reinvigorate a classic. In contrast, the subdued Wildflower with Thomas on muted trumpet showcases the vulnerability inherent in this song about regret. Hilton has a way of inconspicuously reinventing a standard from any era, and her band willingly supports that vision.
Tenor sax man JD Allen is a welcome return, having recorded eight previous albums with Hilton. Their compatibility has always been apparent, weaving complementary lines on the title track Extended Daydream, or swinging together on the finger snapping Momentary Mystery. Tropical Tuesday begins with a delightful Latin rhythm perfect for Curtis’s talents and showcases Hilton’s abundant melodic skills, while It’s Just For Now displays her fluid soloing style. Switching it up, the quintet launches wholeheartedly into Here & There & Back & Forth, chock full of musical references from several eras. Hilton writes in her liner notes that the sensitive tunes Seabirds and Blues on the Beach reference the recent fires in Southern California, while Sunset Tale and the solo piano Spacious Skies call for us to find relief from today’s challenges in nature’s beauty, closing out the album with a slightly classical feeling. If a daydream is a hopeful or insightful experience, the arc of Extended Daydream does extend hope and beauty along with a wallop of improvisational energy and style. Long a composer and pianist to watch, Hilton triumphs with this new genre fluid collection of cool jazz.
About Lisa Kristine Hilton The music of Lisa Hilton draws inspiration from our great American composers: the evocative Miles Davis, Bill Evans, and Chet Baker, who were associated with the style known as “cool” jazz, as well as the grooves of Horace Silver and Dizzy Gillespie, and the creative depth of Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk along with blues hero Robert Johnson. She is a prolific composer who records and performs with many of today’s jazz luminaries. Her thirty one albums regularly sit at the top of the Jazz Week and other radio/streaming charts, drawing millions of plays on streaming services and appearing regularly as an Amazon #1 New Jazz Release. Hilton has performed at Carnegie Hall, The Smithsonian Institute, UCLA Royce Hall, Cornell University Barnes Hall, SF Jazz & many other venues.
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Q & A with Lisa Hilton for their new album entitled Extended Daydream
Q: You’ve got a great band – how long have you been working with JD, Rudy, Luques and Igmar?
Lisa Hilton: I started playing with JD in 2009 for the recording of twilight & blues which is still a fav album of mine. JD brought me his drummer, Rudy for the HORIZONS album in 2015. When I went to see JD play at Smoke in NYC during the Winter Jazz Fest one year, the bass player I really liked was Luques, and he started playing with me in 2018 when we recorded Oasis. Then in 2022, Luques introduced me to Igmar, his former Berklee college roommate, and we’ve been working together since then. I love playing with and touring with each of them, and I enjoy their musical personalities, too.
Q: What do you mean by their “musical personality,” and what’s your musical personality?
LH: I think musicians have tendencies in our performances, and those are often the things we all enjoy listening to. JD has the most beautiful tone and range! He’ll be so melodic, and then boom, he hits the bottom register hard! Rudy always surprises with his different percussive sounds - an unexpected chime or a snapping rim hit – you can never guess what he’ll do. Igmar can be unpredictable, so you tend to lean in when he plays, and then he’ll launch on a virtuosic streak that completely blows you away. Luques has strong leadership and a lot of masterful versatility and plays anything well while putting his own stamp on it. For me, I enjoy being the contrast to what the band is doing. I love being light on my fingers after they’ve had a big moment. My sound is more laid back, too, which is also a nice contrast to the band. I always want them to sound great, so I like to facilitate that and it makes me really happy doing that and urge them on sometimes too. You can tell I’m a big fan of my bandmates, and I think the diversity of our strengths and sounds work really well together.
Q: I noticed this album has a lot of variety in the song choices: from Miles Davis to Billie Eilish to Lisa Hilton.
LH: Our music is genre fluid and ranges from a beloved 1959 jazz composition to music of today. When you think about it, why only perform the music of the last century when there’s a ton of great composers working today too, right? Today’s streaming playlists can sound monotonous because they’re programmed to play similar tunes from the same era, so that the music blurs together. Our albums are fluid and lively – you can listen to this music anywhere and the variety holds your interest. We’ve always got something old and something new, and always have a bit of blues.
Q: You put out an album every year: where does all that creativity come from?
LH: Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve had a lot of creative energy. I played piano and flute, and was the accompanist for our grammar school glee club, and later, for high school plays. I’d also bake, sew and knit - just an abundance of creative activities! I never judge my creativity while I’m on a project: you never know how something will turn out until you’re all done, so I evaluate then. I never put rules or parameters or expectations on my creative time either, like telling myself I have to compose to a concept ahead of time. When I’m not touring or composing, I try and nurture my creativity by exploring other composers of other eras too: anything from Beethoven, to Basie to The Beach Boys. There’s always new things to learn, and that always inspires more creativity from me.
Q: Now that you are done with your album, which are your favorite tunes on Extended Daydream?
LH: I ask the band and engineers after we record what their fav tunes are, and some people said Extended Daydream. Personally, I liked the swinging noir vibe of Momentary Mystery. Here & There & Back & Forth is a retro tune that’s just fun for us to play. Spacious Skies and Sunset Tale are about my urge for people to enjoy the freedom we have outdoors and to be a thoughtful steward of nature. Blues on the Beach, It’s Just for Now and Seabirds relate to the experience of the fires near my SoCal home this year, so they have an emotional base to them – to remember to look for the beauty even in times of trauma. I always enjoy a good mood tune, and Tropical Tuesday is exactly that and I love exploring what pianist/composer Jelly Roll Morton referred to as the Latin tinge on that. The style of jazz I play is referred to as ‘cool jazz’, and the composition by Miles Davis, So What, is a great cool jazz tune, and I LOVE how it came out with our band! I’m also really happy with Wildflower by Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas O’Connell. I think people in general today like genre fluid variety, so that’s what we aim for in our jazz albums.
