Talent Percolates Through Espresso Jazz (continued)

Both have roots here. "I’m really a Valley Girl," Russell says. "I’m Paradise City, born and bred." "And I’m originally from Amherst," adds Hilton.

Both are University of Massachusetts graduates, Hilton in special needs education and Russell in psychology and music. However they never met in college. And both have played music since they were children. Russell’s father played guitar and she started lessons about age 9.

"My father kept his guitar under the bed and when I was very young and too little to hold the guitar, I’d sneak it out and strum it, flat on the floor. My first performance was in the fifth grade. The music teacher asked, "Does anybody play an instrument?" I was the only one who raised my hand. She had me go around to every classroom and I played the "Guitar Boogie Shuffle."

Hilton’s mother played piano and she did, too. She thought her master’s degree in education and certificate of advanced graduate study in school psychology could be helped if she had guitar lessons, as her then special needs students were "really excited about music," and that’s how the two women met. Hilton jokes that her psychology studies still serve her well as a professional, fulltime musician. "It was a good background to have because musicians can be pretty freaky," she says with a smile.

In 1993, while teaching on Cape Cod, Hilton, also a professional clown, had been hired for a First Night performance. "And I said, Oh, we also have a little jazz combo and we could do something," she says. "So it was a mad scramble, but we did it," adds Russell of their first Espresso gig.

At about that same time, Hilton "got involved" with an upright bass, "It called out to me from the corner of the music store," she says, adding she also spent about a year recuperating from a life-threatening illness and decided to leave the public education field to pursue music full time.

"It was like the Divine Choreographer kept pushing me away from the classroom and it was time to move in a new direction," she says. "When she was better she woodshedded on that bass," says Russell. During that time Russell kept her solo career going, but also took a job at Gribbon's Music, a business involved with school music programs. "All my life I had been a musician, but here was a place where I was learning the business of music," says Russell, who with the college band, Sweet Basil, started to explore the standards of the "Great American Songbook". She then moved to Kansas City where that study continued and her bluesy style was honed.

"I really increased my study with those tunes, because I found it was what got me work," Russell says. "But I had always loved those songs. We grew up with them." She left the old standards for a while for top 40 cover tunes, or "the stuff on the radio." "Tina Turner, The Police, things like that," she explains. "But that got to be a scramble of always learning the latest song and three months later it would be, "That’s old." And I was getting older, so I started looking at these standards as the nuggets of American Music. I could learn them once and use them the rest of my life. On the Cape I realized people, as they got older, could still make a living as a musician by doing this sort of material."

Returning to the Valley and while working at Gribbon's, Russell met a frequent third member of Espresso Jazz, a veteran of the New York jazz scene, clarinetist Bob Sparkman, also know as "Sparky". Sparkman’s spirited style is featured on Espresso’s introductory CD, "All Of Me"

Sax ace Kerry Blount added a new dimension of richness to the mix during the spring of 2000. A recording artist with Atlantic, Warner Brothers and London records, Blount’s warm tenor sound may be heard on Espresso’s CD entitled, "I'm Just A Lucky So & So"

Russell says learning the business aspects of being a working musician takes up time. "This is the dilemma, it becomes more business and less music." says Russell, whose dry wit also leads her to answer the question, Do you have day jobs? By saying "Yes, we do. We work all day on our night jobs." But there is an upside to working all day on your night job. "The upside is by doing what we do, we seem to have an edge over other people," referring to the rich, mellow sound Espresso provides at Chandler’s and Zoe’s in Northampton. "There aren’t many people in the area that do this kind of music and do it as quietly as we do." And on a good night the upside of playing their style of jazz and connecting intimately with an audience is great.

Hilton and Russell recall playing recently at Chandler’s when a 10 year old celebrating her birthday approached them to buy their CD with her birthday money. "She was so cute. She wanted an autograph, says Hilton. "It’s quiet there and sometimes people are afraid to clap, but after every song you could hear two little hands clapping."  "Those are the nice things. It’s the kids and the older people that touch you so much because they are just so happy to hear that music," adds Russell.

"The deal is to be able to take your artistic abilities and make a living out of it." "We’re hustling all the time for work." says Hilton. "In an area where there aren’t a lot of options," adds Russell. "But when one door closes, another opens," Hilton sums up with her characteristic gentle smile, "With something even better."