James Hill Trio

James Hill is an award-winning Toronto-based pianist, composer and producer, most well-known for his work as keyboardist for the jazz and hiphop sensation Badbadnotgood. As a leader, he has produced 6 long play studio albums and numerous singles. Hill’s latest release is an album called REMOTISM, which is the second full-length album he has released with his band Local Talent (featuring Canadian musicians, and long-time collaborators, Rich Brown and Ian Wright).

The musical imagery and sounds for the album are derived from the many phone recordings Hill took of himself improvising on piano during the early days of the pandemic lockdown. Hill’s compositional style, and approach to the piano, is rooted in jazz improvisation, but draws often from classical composition, film and nostalgic pop-culture of the ‘90s. In May 2021, Hill engineered (recorded), performed and produced a duo album called Sixteen Ways with Toronto bassist Julian Anderson-Bowes, who shares an interest in conceptual improvisation and serialism. Inspired by the acoustic ambience of the Beaches Presbytarian Church, they set up a portable recording rig and recorded themselves improvising for two consecutive days. The resulting album comprises 16 selections from the 10 hours of improvisation. Aside from his work with ensembles, Hill composes dynamic music for solo piano, which he performs in his adoptive city of Toronto. His debut solo piano album was called Everyday Fiction. With over seven years of experience performing and recording professionally, Hill has played and worked in over 35 countries at some of the world’s most prestigious festivals including Glastonbury, Montreux Jazz, Sonar, SXSW, Newport Jazz and many more. Over the last two years, Hill’s snowballing interest in electronic music production has led him to create music in a new way. Hill will be
debuting this new work under the moniker Projectwhatever.