All Blues CD

Famed American writer/saxophonist Zan Stewart is the author of the liner notes to this album. He starts the notes, A profound musician of considerable talent, the alto and soprano saxophonist and singer Pony Poindexter (1926-1980) could accurately be called an under-recognized modern jazz master. Pony Poindexter's SteepleChase debut as a leader All Blues is a live Danmarks Radio broadcast from Jazzhus Montmartre, Copenhagen, early 1966, with the club's house trio of Kenny Drew (p), Niels-Henning orsted Pedersen (b) and Makaya Ntshoko (ds), the same rhythm section heard weeks earlier behind Dexter Gordon and Poindexter on SCCD 36036 Stella By Starlight. A New Orleans native raised in Richmond, California, Poindexter took Charlie Parker as his model. His sideman credits list more than 30 sessions with Billy Eckstine, Lionel Hampton, Billie Holiday and Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, plus a 1953 Bop City sit-in by Parker. He led only a handful of dates, such as Pony's Express (Epic, 1962) and Gumbo! (Prestige, 1963). He made Europe his home from the mid-1960s.The album contains three extended performances, nearly 47 minutes: Orfeu Negro moves from fast bossa nova into brisk straight-ahead swing; All Blues pairs Oscar Brown Jr.'s lyric with a warm, singing soprano solo as Drew builds in waves; Moody's Mood for Love sets his vocal above a mellow soprano chorus.Unhurried, deeply swinging, unmistakably his own: one of the first bop-oriented jazz musicians to start doubling on soprano (AllMusic).