Bobby Henderson

Born April 16, 1910, New York City, New York, U.S. Died December 9, 1969, Albany, New York, U.S. Genres Jazz, stride piano Henderson was a great admirer of pianist Fats Waller, with whom Henderson had an opportunity to play, informally. Subsequent to Waller's death, in 1943, Henderson was regarded as the successor to Fats Waller. This did not occur, given that Henderson had largely disappeared from music at that time. Henderson was briefly engaged to the teenaged Billie Holiday in 1934, whom he met and accompanied at the nightclub Pod's and Jerry's, but on December 1 that year the New York Age announced that he was no longer engaged to her. Subsequent to the termination of his engagement to Billie Holiday, Henderson went into self-imposed exile for over twenty years. He changed his name to Jody Bolden, in honor of jazz cornetist Buddy Bolden who, suffering from schizophrenia, had died in an asylum in 1931. Henderson was rediscovered and recorded by John Hammond in 1956, and appeared at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1957. Hammond had first known Henderson in the 1930s, during Henderson's time playing with Holiday. At the time of the termination of his engagement to Holiday, Henderson had been contracted by Hammond for an important recording session, which Henderson did not attend, and instead disappeared. Henderson died in Albany, New York, in 1969