Lisa Hilton: Lucky All Along

Throughout the course of her quietly triumphant, just south-of-the-spotlight, virtuoso career, pianist/composer Lisa Hilton has never actively pursued, Captain Ahab-like, the biggest fish in the sea. She has played alongside many of the biggies—Christian McBride,  Antonio Sanchez, Nasheet Waits, Sean Jones, JD Allen—but finds the greatest comfort, harmony, and camaraderie among her long-standing rhythm mates: bassist Luques Curtis, drummer Rudy Royston and, for their third quartet recording, trumpeter Igmar Thomas.

Hilton does a lot of pretty things with a simple Latin sway (that no one plays like Royston) and "Little Beach Mornings" is no exception. It could very well be her latest pinnacle. Bright and breezy, it is everything an album opener should be: open, declarative, seductive, lasting. Then Hilton and her ever-ready mates do what all artists should do: flip the script with "All Blues." Yes, that "All Blues." The one from that classic moment in time in the career of Miles Davis.

This is not usual territory for Hilton but she sure knows her way around. So does Thomas, who cuts through like the master as the band cool spirals around him. Curtis and Royston have a particular hold on this track, its weave just loose enough to let Hilton and Thomas shine. Imagine the peaks we could climb if everyone listening to Hilton or reading this played so well together. Similar in time and feel to "Take Five," Hilton's fully realized, open and clarifying, Cuban-inflected "Prophesies and Predictions" instantly becomes one of the pianist's most memorable tunes.

Truth be told, Lucky All Along could be as close to a greatest hits album Hilton or any of us will ever get. Just the first listen of "Hollywood Moment," the cagey and wiry "And Some Blues . . ." and the easing balm of "Escapist Fantasy" lends strong support to that greatest hits theory. Curtis especially is at the top of his game, curving and accenting at whim. "See You Again," co-written with upcoming singer/songwriter Charlie Puth, hosts an un-rushed Americana theme that Hilton obviously takes a personal pride in revealing. The title track bops neatly along into the Van Gogh cinema of "Big Sur Views" the sun and the sand and the ocean right there, just an imagining away. Like all of Lucky All Along: very attainable, very welcome. Very deserved.

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