It’s been over a decade since honky-tonk visionary Wayne “The Train” Hancock began criss-crossing the country in a seemingly endless loop of one-nighters, spreading his jazz-infused hillbilly gospel far and wide, all the while picking up plenty of first-hand inspiration for the musical travelogue that serves as his recorded career. Writing almost solely about the road—the people, places and loves that he meets along the way—one never expects a new Hancock album to sound much different than the last one; only that he’ll dig ever deeper into the bottomless well of jazz, blues, country and Tin Pan Alley that he so naturally dwells in. But have no fear; an approach that might serve as disastrously boring in the hands of lesser artists is the beauty of the genre-defying Hancock mystique. While others get stale, burn out and drop like flies, this juke joint troubadour just keeps getting hotter and hotter.

All that said, it’s hardly surprising that Tulsa is yet another beautifully crafted collection of stunning originals that finds him walking in the footsteps of giants; in fact, it might just be his best yet. While there are plenty of tunes here that call upon the swinging spirits of everyone from Cab Calloway to Gatemouth Brown to a thousand Western Swing kings whose names have been lost to the sands of time, Hancock’s way with a ballad is nearly unequaled. “Highway Bound” and “This Lonely Night,” to name just two, echo with the timelessness of Hoagy Carmichael’s finest moments.

Laid down live in two-and-a-half days, Hancock augmented his two-piece road band of acoustic bass and lead electric guitar with sparsely tasteful players like steel guitarist Eddie Rivers, tailgating trombonist Bob Stafford and clarinetist John Doyle. The clarity and warmth of the recording won’t let you forget they’re there but just in case you do, Hancock calls nearly everyone of them out for their solos with full-bore enthusiasm. With his strongly strummed acoustic six-string leading the call, Hancock’s surefire songs and performances are strong enough to have stood alone with his own accompaniment, but the exquisite arrangements and talented sidemen only add to another impossible-to-categorize, yet unquestionably fine notch in his belt.