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Music

Pianist and composer

Tamir Hendelman brings his

imaginative jazz renditions to Cliff Bell’s.

SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

T

ABOVE:
Tamir Hendelman.

details

The Tamir Hendelman
Trio will perform at 8 p.m.
Sunday, March 11, at Cliff
Bell’s, Detroit. $15. (313)
961-2543; cliffbells.com.

46

March 1 • 2018

amir Hendelman felt
very comfortable mov-
ing from Israel to Los
Angeles as a 12-year-old. His
parents were looking for more
opportunities, and he found
many ways to pursue his musi-
cal interests through jazz piano
and composing. More person-
ally, he also found a large com-
munity of people from Israel
and a climate close to the one
he had known.
Long walks with his father
around their new neighbor-
hood eventually led to a song
he composed, “Sycamore,”
which captures the feeling of
being surrounded by beautiful
trees during those times alone
with his dad. Another original
song, “Israeli Waltz,” captures
a very different walk as he
showed his wife, jazz bassist
Sherry Luchette, around Israel.
Both songs are likely to be
in the program he will bring
Sunday evening, March 11,

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to Cliff Bell’s in Downtown
Detroit, where he will be joined
by Paul Keller on bass and Sean
Dobbins on drums.
“We’ve played together on
various tours, and we’ll be play-
ing music from my two CDs,
Playground and Destination,”
says Hendelman, 46, familiar
with the Michigan jazz scene
through appearances in Ann
Arbor and Dearborn and
workshop leadership at the
University of Michigan and
Cranbrook.
“We’ll have a mix of stan-
dards from the American song-
book, jazz classics and some of
my own originals. One of the
joys of playing a trio format is
that everybody gets a chance
to make the others be the best
that they can be.
“We love to swing and rein-
vent standards. When I take a
tune that has been done by oth-
ers, I arrange it by looking into
those versions and then look-

ing deeper into the pieces to
find things — maybe a melodic
phrase or a certain mood — to
do more with it in a way that
really can tell a story and fea-
ture members of the band.”
Music captivated Hendelman
at age 6, when he started with
an electric organ after watching
one demonstrated in a store.
In America, a teacher got him
more interested in piano, jazz
and improvisation, and at 14,
he won a Yamaha competition
with an original piece, went
into a high-school arts program
and attended a high-end music
camp.
Hendelman’s studies were
intense at the Eastman School
of Music in Rochester, N.Y.,
where he earned a bachelor’s
degree in musical composition.
“When I came back to L.A.,
I did a little bit of film scor-
ing and played around town,”
recalls Hendelman, whose
brother Saar is a composer and

vocalist. “I tried to learn from
people who were more expe-
rienced than me. There was
a great music scene in south-
central L.A., and I often worked
with vocalists.
“One day, I performed
with Sandra Booker and Jeff
Hamilton. A few months later,
Jeff ’s pianist had left, and he
invited me to join his trio. We
just recorded an album, Live
from San Pedro.
“I also formed my own trio
and joined the Clayton-Hamilton
Jazz Orchestra. In the process
of doing all this, I got to meet
wonderful musicians. I recorded
for the Resonance label and was
invited to arrange and record
with other artists on that label.”
Hendelman has appreciated
the opportunity of touring and
recording with many great sing-
ers, including Barbra Streisand
and Natalie Cole.
“Working with them was the
way I got to learn a lot of the lyr-