Tyler Henderson photo: via Cellar Music on Bandcamp
Unstifle your yawns if you are looking at this and going, “Oh, another swinging piano trio.” Because you haven’t heard it all before. And what accomplished playing that injects a bright energy and flair into the admittedly highly retro modern jazz style this all proves.
In the video Tyler Henderson plays The Long Game number ‘Mahogany’ an original of his at a club in Philadelphia called Chris’ Jazz Cafe last year along with album playing mates bassist Caleb Tobocman and drummer Hank Allen-Barfield.
Largely originals of the pianist’s – some taken at quite a lick (‘Tokyo Nights’ in particular canters along) – the album also factors in a treatment of Jimmy Van Heusen’s swing-era swoonathon, ‘All This and Heaven Too.’
Charlie Barnet recorded the song initially in 1940 in a version that had a vocal by Larry Taylor. Tommy Dorsey followed suit that same year with Ol’ Blue Eyes doing the singing. The Velvet Fog Mel Tormé did the ballad ever so lushly in the 50s. The one that I think suits best with Henderson’s approach is above – it’s John Bunch’s from that pianist’s 2006 album John Bunch at the Nola Penthouse Salutes Jimmy Van Heusen in a trio with English jazz musicians Dave Green and Steve Brown known for their work with Ian Shaw and Scott Hamilton.
Henderson, 24, hails from Oneonta, a small town in upstate New York. Bill Evans’ version of ‘Autumn Leaves’ from Portrait in Jazz, was an important early influence. A little over a decade ago Henderson and his family moved to Houston, Texas, where he attended the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts followed by the Juilliard in New York. While largely a trio album The Long Game finds Henderson with the aforementioned double bassist Caleb Tobocman and drummer Hank Allen-Barfield. But there’s tenor sax from the Paul Desmond inspired Toronto jazzer Jacob Chung in the mix found on the lively ‘Eight Ball.’
Henderson is beginning to establish a discography. Love Endures (2025 – issued on the same label as this new one) was recorded in Vancouver and again saw him with Tobocman and Allen-Barfield. Some of the standards on that one are ‘On a Clear Day’, ‘I’ll Never Smile Again’ and ‘In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning’ but it’s the sprint through Sacha Distel’s ‘The Good Life’ that proved hardest to resist. Such artfully conjured careless love painted all over playfully conveyed is part of the Henderson key to success then and – absolutely – now.
