LISA HILTON / PIANO 

J.D. ALLEN / SAX,  IGMAR THOMAS / TRUMPET,  RUDY ROYSTON / DRUMS,  LUQUES CURTIS / BASS

​

Album Notes:

As a young girl growing up in a small town on California’s Central Coast, I was confused why I was required to play waltzes, mazurkas, gavottes, and other European dances of another era in order to learn to play the piano. I didn’t even know what these things were! I wanted to play music from my world, not someone else’s, so I was always a little disappointed with what I was supposed to be playing, and was always looking for something I wanted to play. At an early age, I dabbled in creating my own expressions—writing my first piano pieces around the age of seven. As I grew as a pianist, I became intrigued by those composers who could create something that seemed to be more than what was written on the page. How did Chopin, Debussy, Rachmaninoff, or Prokofiev achieve that three-dimensional quality to their music? When I was introduced to the blues as a teenager, I realized that some musicians were able to convey great emotion through music as well. My musical curiosity had begun: to write music that was about life today, to try to free music from the written page, and to express emotion as well.  

 

It was our great American composers who soon resonated the most to me: 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. Although jazz has been around for over a hundred years, just as in classical music, there is a tendency to continue playing the music of the past, rather than writing music for our current millennium. As a composer, I am committed to representing our lives today, while referencing the long history of jazz, improvised music, and American blues, as well as any other style of music, in a genre-fluid way. Life today is fluid—we can access any style of music, from any era or genre, anywhere in the world. So the music of today should sound that way as well, right? Composing to me is an artistic expression of what we, all of us around the world, are experiencing collectively, and every year we record this music as a band in collaboration, expressing through our instruments, skills, and emotions. It’s always a thrill for me to hear how everyone interprets and improvises on what I have composed.  

 

When there is disruption due to weather turmoil, politics, famine, war, floods, or fire, we all hear about these global experiences. Yet I am also aware, every day, of the beauty that’s in nature and in our communities. I personally choose to always look for what is good, “right” and freely given in this world: anything from a smile to a sunset—while still understanding our challenging times. In 2025, my personal experiences included living adjacent to the destruction caused by three fires in less than two months' time near my home in Malibu, California. Although my home survived, I have deep compassion for my three family members, my neighbors and friends who lost their homes, and everyone else who was affected by this experience. The music presented in Extended Daydream includes this layer of empathy. As musicians, our greatest hope is that this music will lift your spirit wherever you are around the world. 

 

Lisa Hilton

August 31, 2025

 

So What was written by Miles Davis and recorded in 1959 for his album Kind Of Blue. This is one of the most beloved jazz compositions of all time, and I will never forget the power and skill the band exhibited when we recorded this piece without any rehearsal—this is the first take! I like the noir vibe and swing to Momentary Mystery a lot. Extended Daydream, the title track, recognizes that we tend to pray for what we had in the past—the daydream—yet we must look toward the opportunities that change will bring, even if we can’t imagine what that is in the moment; our daydreams can create hope for our future. Tropical Tuesday is a celebration of a “favorite” day with a Latin tinge.  It’s Just for Now was intentionally written to create a feeling of change, using different modes (or keys) and slightly altered motifs—to sound familiar but a little different.  Here & There & Back & Forth sums up not only life today, but also our ability as artists to draw inspiration from any era for our art. Blues on the Beach and Seabirds directly express the experiences of our recent fires, their destruction juxtaposed with the sheer beauty of nature in SoCal. The cover song "Wildflower" is a song of regret written by Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas O’Connell; it is an excellent example of the extremely talented composers working today.  Sunset Tale and Spacious Skies call out to seek peace in nature.   

 

FOR MORE INFO: www.LisaHiltonMusic.com  FOLLOW: Lisa Hilton Music on all socials LISTEN: All streaming services