Lew Hilt

Llewellyn Cedric Hilt was born on 31st October 1948 in the small town of Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh in India. He was later called ‘Lew’, a name much easier to spell and pronounce. Lew began playing the guitar at the age of 16, a bit late in life by musical standards, but two years later he was good enough to be able to perform with “The Cavaliers” – a professional band. It was during this tenure that Lew started playing the Bass guitar.

In 1969/70 Lew joined “Great Bear”, a slightly more advanced and heavier band, with an eye on improvisation. This was an important step for him musically.
Between 1970 and 1974 Lew also jammed with many other aspiring musicians.

In 1974, along with Dilip Balakrishnan, Nondon Bagchi and Adi Irani, the band “High” was formed. This went on to become a cult band that started writing and performing original music. “high” had a huge fan following all over the country.

In 1978/79 Lew joined the Louis Banks’ Brotherhood, a band of very renowned musicians with the likes of Pam Craine and Braz Gonzalves, truly big names in the jazz circuit. This outfit played contracts both in Calcutta and Bombay. During this tenure in Bombay, Lew played alongside Broadway conductor Chapman Roberts and Grammy Nominee For Gospel Music- Fred Gripper.

In 1982 Lew returned to Calcutta and joined Carlton Kitto, a jazz guitarist par excellence, along with Pam Craine and Jazz Rock Music. At this time he was also a founding member of the Fusion band “Karma” with Indian Classical Musicians Shriven Chatterjee ( tabla) and Rajib Chakroborty ( Sarod)

In 1983/84 he joined the band “Airwave” with Gyan Singh, Jayshree and Amit Dutta.

In 1985/86 Lew joined the rock band “Shiva” which was probably one of the most travelled bands in the country. He played with Shiva for 17 years
He played bass with the band “Ace of Spades”in 1996/97 with Lou Majaw

In 2001 he performed with the “Kitto- Hilt Organisation” at the first All Indian Jazz Yatra.

In 2003 he played with Indian Classical Nylon Strings Guitar player Satish Sharma of “SAAZ”
In 2004 he is a founding member of the Delhi based band HFT that plays original music of many colours.
Through all these years of his musical career he has worked as a sessions musician on countless recording sessions with a vast number of musicians and music directors.

Other Interests:
In the early 70’s Lew started dabbling in art. At school in St. Xavier’s, Patna, though he proved to be good at art he shelved this to pursue a career in music. It was only in the late 70’s that Lew discovered the works of Hieronymos Bosh and Salvador Dali. Hugely influenced by these great artists, Lew found his own style of painting- dots, pointillism (arguable) or call it stippling. Lew works in black in white with pen and ink. In 2001 he held a successful exhibition at the Chitrakoot Gallery in Calcutta.

Lew is also an actor, having worked with director Anjan Dutt in TV Serials and tele-films alongside actors of great repute like Irfhan Khan and Dadhi Pandey to name a few.
Today Lew plays with HFT and is also working on projects with a band called “Jazzelmer” with Satish Sharma and is also recoding an Indipop album with Sunny Sachdev.
Lew’s main influences as far as bass playing goes are Jack Bruce, Paul McCartney, Stanley Clarke and Jaco Pastonius, but also loves many bass players of our time.