Lisa Hilton’s Thirtieth Jazz Album

Some readers may recall that I last wrote about jazz pianist Lisa Hilton not much longer than a year ago, following up on the release for her quartet album Coincidental Moment. She led a quartet, whose other members were trumpeter Igmar Thomas, Luques Curtis on bass, and percussionist Rudy Royston. Most of the tracks were originals; but she also included “Blue in Green,” which may or may not have been composed jointly (but not necessarily in a partnership) by Miles Davis and Bill Evans.

Lisa Hilton on the cover of her latest album (courtesy of DL Media)

According to its Amazon.com Web page, her latest album, Lucky All Along, was released at the beginning of this past November. It is again a quartet album, and the members have not changed. Those that visit the Web site will see that the New York City Jazz Record honored this release as “one of the best albums of 2024” (apparently citing that encomium from All About Jazz). Once again, most of the tracks are originals; but this time there is a track that can definitely be attributed to Davis, “All Blues.” As might be expected, Thomas gets a generous amount of solo playing for it; and I, for one, am delighted with how he “found his own voice” without trying to channel the composer’s performances.

Nevertheless, where Hilton’s own tracks are concerned, I fear that there was little to urge me to sit up and take notice. I am reminded of what I wrote about a similar jazz quartet in September of last year:

My guess is that, if I had seen this group perform at Mr. Tipple’s Jazz Club in an experience enhanced by good food, drink and even dessert, I would have come away with the impression that it was an evening well spent. Nevertheless, on the album none of the tracks leaves much an impression, whether it involves the tune itself of its capacity for improvisation.

Perhaps this is just a matter of age kicking in on my capacity for appreciation.

The bebop era was one of revolutionary changes, which can still be appreciated through attentive listening to the many tracks recorded by the likes of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. However, when I was growing up, bebop gave way to third stream, which felt too much as if the intellectual was shoving the visceral into the background. Now it almost seems as if jazz has devolved into a “genre of nostalgia” with new tunes reflecting back on old styles; and that pretty much accounts for how I react to Hilton’s originals.

I wish it were otherwise, but I have come to fear that any vivacity in the spirit of jazz may be succumbing to “old age,” just like that generation of jazz masters that that flourished in the last decades of the last century.