Lisa Hilton Releases Inventive Jazz Quartet Album

Regular readers probably know by now that today is a major release date for both of the genres that occupy most of my listening time, classical and jazz. Earlier this week I got the jump on a few of those releases. However, since I limit myself to one album a day, I shall continue to be accounting for this date well into next week.

Today’s article will be in the jazz domain. It is a quartet album led by pianist Lisa Hilton entitled Coincidental Moment. This was very much a “first contact” experience; and I suspect I was drawn to it because the press blurb associated Hilton with Dave Brubeck, Brad Mehldau, and Bill Evans in a single sentence from All About Jazz. The album has eleven tracks, nine of which are Hilton originals. One of these is “Blue in Green,” which may or may not have been composed jointly (but not necessarily in a partnership) by Miles Davis and Bill Evans. The other is Lana Del Rey’s “West Coast.”

Lisa Hilton with the members of her quartet: Luques Curtis (bass), Igmar Thomas (trumpet), and Rudy Royston (percussion) (courtesy of DL Media)

The other members of the quartet are trumpeter Igmar Thomas, Luques Curtis on bass, and percussionist Rudy Royston. I found myself drawn to Thomas’ muted trumpet work, which seemed to reflect Davis’ take on “Blue in Green” without imitating it. The quartet appears on all of the first ten tracks, while the final track is a piano solo. I particularly enjoy Thomas’ rhetoric of understatement, which brings impeccable clarity to the improvisations he injects into the album’s tracks.

As I have come to know all of the tracks on the album, I was glad to be informed that the quartet will be performing in the Joe Henderson Lab at the SFJAZZ Center this coming March 7. They will present the usual two set evening with sets beginning at 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., and I have every intention of showing up at 7 p.m. Presumably the quartet will draw upon tunes recorded for Coincidental Moment, giving me the opportunity to see how adventurous some of the improvisations turn out to be.