“Lisa Hilton has been compared to some of the best pianists in history,  but her sound and style are all her own.”

The New Face Of Jazz by Cicily Janus

“One of the major voices in the modern jazz community.”

George Harris / Jazz Weekly

“A masterful mood–setter and a conceptualist nonpareil.”

Dan Bilawsky / All About Jazz

“Like the best jazz master, Hilton puts her ensemble to great use as they dismantle the historical precedence of such influences as Bill Evans & John Coltrane….redirecting the complex touchstones of jazz into the 21st century”.

Sounds of Timeless Jazz

“Hilton hits the mark: she has joined the ranks of her own contemporary heroes.”

Todd Steed, WUOT Radio

“Hilton clearly has a musical voice.”

DownBeat Magazine

“She can coax a sound from the upper-middle register that’s reminiscent of the way Bill Evens used to sound: like he was splitting delicate icicles into pieces, gently, with a flick of the middle finger.”

Giovanni Russonello / Capitol Bop

“Ms. Hilton continues to unclog the arteries in jazz.”

Karl Stober / JazzReview 

“Sounds like Dave Brubeck and Miles Davis in a blender with a pinch of Jobim…”

Ben Marcus / Malibu Times

  “A deeply expressive style…rich melodies and improvisations… and an appealing impressionism.

”Philip Booth, Downbeat Magazine. 

LISA KRISTINE HILTON is an award-winning American composer and acclaimed jazz pianist, as well as a producer and bandleader. Hilton is a voting member of The Recording Academy, the National Music Publishers Association and with The Harry Fox Agency. For several years she has served on the Presidential Advisory Committee for Berklee College of Music in Boston.

Growing up on California’s central coast, Hilton was so entranced with the piano that she taught herself to play music with a colored keyboard guide, writing her first simple songs before beginning studies in classical and twenty-first century music starting at the age of eight. Attending college in San Francisco though, she switched majors and graduated instead with a degree in art and began working in fine art photography, design, and art direction until her interest in music was reignited by a Malibu neighbor: the Grammy award-winning producer/composer David Foster. Hilton resumed some studies in theory and composition with composer Charles Bernstein, and other professors at UCLA, but has said she relies on her art background when she composes: describing “painting” or “sculpting” with modal harmonic ideas, improvisation or rhythms from different cultures and eras. 

Hilton has thirty-one albums released in the United States, as well as two in Asia, and has hundreds of compositions.  Her albums regularly sit near the top of the Jazz Week Chart and other charts, appear as #1 on Amazon new release charts, and often show up in the annual Top Jazz Albums of the Year.  Her music has received over half a million streams on Apple Music, over a million on Spotify, and three and a half million on Pandora. As a soloist, with her trio, quartet, or quintet, Hilton has performed at venues of all sizes, including Carnegie Hall, San Francisco Jazz, The Green Mill, The Smithsonian, Cornell University, UCLA Royce Theater, The Dorothy Chandler Theater, Pepperdine University, among others.

Lisa K. Hilton is also the creator and co-author of the popular children’s book, If Dinosaurs Were Alive Today (Price Stern Sloan), as well as the updated digital version by the same name. For many years, she has lived in Malibu, California with her husband, Steven M. Hilton, and their son and daughter.

 In her own words: 

​

When I begged for piano lessons at the age of five, my mother said no: she thought I wouldn’t practice because when my two older sisters took piano lessons, they rarely practiced. So for a while I taught myself how to play with a little colored keyboard guide, and my mom taught me the names of the notes. I learned the usual nursery songs, but those got boring quickly, so I started composing my own simple songs with names like “Fairy Dance.” One of my earliest memories at the piano was of my mother asking what I was playing, and I happily said it was a song I made up myself. 

Turning eight, I was ecstatic when I found out I would finally get piano lessons! It turns out I loved to practice, and I learned quickly, but became 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 though. (I didn’t even know what these things were!) I wanted to play music from today’s world, 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. 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. The basis of 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. I was still passionate about music after studying classical and “modern” piano literature for ten years, so I headed to college in San Francisco, where I studied with the virtuoso pianist, Carlo Bussotti. At eighteen I couldn’t envision a future as a classical pianist though, so I dropped out of the program, graduating instead with a degree in art and design and for many years after that I didn’t play or own a piano.

After college, I still kept my creativity active. I exhibited my photography across the US and worked with other photographers as an assistant. After that I worked as a creative director at a design firm in the entertainment industry winning an award for a film poster I designed for a Coen brothers film. With my sister Sandra Kirkpatrick, we wrote the popular children’s book, If Dinosaurs Were Alive Today (Price/Stern/Sloan – Penguin/Random House). The time away from the piano, working in art and design, actually contributed to my creative skills: now I think of composition in terms of color, balance, and texture, imagining music as I would a sculpture or a painting rather than as notes or tones.

When I returned to music, it was like coming home again to my first love, but I had to make up for all those years I didn’t play! After being considered a gifted pianist when I was young, it was incredibly humbling to start over. Unfortunately, my performance anxiety had increased, but I was too embarrassed to tell anyone about my feelings or ask for help.  So I practiced and continually hacked my habits to get better results, but it took years to acquire my piano skills again. During that time, I also taught myself notation software to prepare the scores for our recording sessions. Thankfully, I now enjoy notating music, and it’s exhilarating to play the piano in the way I’ve always wanted. Performing as a solo pianist and also with my band at Carnegie Hall were important and essential milestones on my path after my previous difficulties.  

My Dutch grandfather, on my father’s side, immigrated to the US to teach at Yale, and my Dutch grandmother was a kindergarten teacher whose brother had been a young virtuoso pianist in Holland. (I think it’s so cool that my great uncle Willem Bloemendahl (1910-1937) played for the Dutch queen as a young man). My French grandparents, on my mother’s side of the family, immigrated here after my grandfather was exposed to mustard gas and disabled in the war. After he passed away, my grandmother taught French at Reed College to support their four young children as a single mother.  I am thankful for the strong work ethic my grandparents and parents modeled for us: Dad was also a university professor while my mom ran her own successful small business. They were always supportive of the talents of their four daughters and stressed that our education and work experience were important.  

I’ve had so many extraordinary musical experiences since leaving my hometown of San Luis Obispo. Growing up in a small town on California’s beautiful Central Coast kept me fairly sheltered. I never saw professional musicians there, never went to jazz camp, or attended any music workshops. Surprisingly, I didn’t even fly on a plane until I was eighteen! Yet I have since recorded and toured with the jazz icons of this era, worked with top engineers at the best studios in the U.S., and received honors and awards. I feel incredibly thankful and lucky for these unforgettable moments and experiences since I returned to a career in music and for the support I’ve found — it has been well worth the effort.   

If you look at photos of me when I’m in a recording studio, I always have a really big smile on my face! I love recording new music - for me this is when the music comes alive for the first time.  It can also be stressful to perform and lead a studio session as a producer and bandleader, though. The first time I flew to NYC to record, I became overly anxious before a quintet date. I could barely sleep the night before and was not at my best when I showed up at the studio. Looking at my band mates at the time: Christian McBride, Lewis Nash, Steve Wilson, and Jeremy Pelt, I didn’t know how I could possibly manage the next five hours of recording, yet two minutes into the music, my apprehension was gone. I was thrilled, excited, and energized by the incredible musical energy we shared.  

For many years, I never saw any women working in a studio. I first started recording albums at Chick Corea’s Mad Hatter Studio in Los Feliz, CA and later worked at Avatar/Power Station and Sear Sound in NYC, and then Capitol Studios and The Village Studios in Los Angeles.  My last two albums I have recorded in Hollywood at EastWest Studios in Hollywood. For many years, I was the only woman in the studio when I worked. Lately I’ve met women working as engineers and studio managers, as well as instrumentalists, and it feels good to see this positive progress. 

There is still gender discrimination in music though. Performing Art Centers, jazz clubs, opera stages and Broadway shows normally present music composed primarily or exclusively by men. It is so pervasive that we don’t even realize that we just spent ninety minutes listening to music written by men, often performed by men, and usually conducted by…men! How silly and old-fashioned that is! Women have always been cultural leaders, even if they haven’t been acknowledged as such. (The first composer was believed to be a nun.) Why are we so aware of jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong when his wife, the college-educated pianist/composer/bandleader Lil’ Hardin, taught him about music theory! Women have always had tremendous talents and made cultural contributions, and we should be able to experience their artistic views as composers, bandleaders, conductors and instrumentalists at jazz clubs, Performing Arts Centers, on Broadway, and at the opera too. 

I am always thankful when our band is able to tour: our audiences are always so appreciative!  Whenever possible, I have also been performing for visually impaired students since the beginning of my career. Music has always been so important in my life: if I were blind, I think it would mean even more to me. I try to reach out to visually impaired students and give something I would have loved in my childhood – a visit from a professional musician.  Over the years, I have worked with Perkins School for the Blind near Boston, The Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired, Junior Blind of America, and the Assistive Music Technology (AMT) program at Berklee College of Music. I have always believed that music should be available for everyone and I really enjoy these performances too.

Since childhood, I have consistently found great joy in composing - it is such a passion for me. I have now composed, performed on, and produced thirty- one albums in the U.S, with two additional albums in Asia. In composing, I always let the music come to me. I never try to force an idea or write to a concept like you would for a school assignment.  I believe the life experiences we all share can be communicated to others through music, and it’s important to create music for this generation, not continually play music from the past. I am thankful that our music resonates so well with jazz and music fans around the world and for the tremendous support we receive from radio and streaming services as well as media sources and writers. The small town girl in me is thankful and amazed that our music is streamed millions of times, reaches the tops of jazz charts, and typically appears as a #1 New Release at Amazon. 

I never intended to do all the different things I have done - one thing always led to another. Wanting to compose led me to recording, producing, and performing. Having copyrights and recordings led me to start a publishing company and record label. My skills as a creative director have helped me create the albums and books. I view myself as an artist and a creator who collaborate with talented musicians and artists, each of us collectively contributing. It’s a lot of work, but it can be a lot of fun too! 

Family is very important to me, and I didn’t want to miss out on spending time with our kids, so my career started later than for some. Now that our two children are older, I can enjoy more time with my piano, composing, touring and with my husband too of course! I never intended for my career in jazz to be an example for our children, but I think it was good to see their mom create new work and a career over time – the same way I saw my parents grow in their professions.