Pony Boy All-Star Big Band: This Is Now [Live At Boxley’s] (2024)

The Seattle-based Pony Boy All-Star Big Band was formed together by drummer/arranger Greg Williamson, and within the ranks of the 18 musicians on this recording are people who have played with The Glenn Miller Orchestra, Woody Herman’s Thundering Herd, Harry James Orchestra, Count Basie, Natalie Cole, Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra, Diana Krall, Steve Allen, Ernestine Anderson… recently backing up Don Rickles and Joan Rivers. You can hire a stripped-down version, or even add three singers to the mix, but what we have here is a set which was recorded at Boxley’s Jazz Club in North Bend, Washington State on May 17th last year. There are also a few bonus cuts §recorded at the same venue a few weeks earlier.

This band is very heavily made up of saxophones, trumpets and trombones, with just drums, bass and piano being the only outsiders. This is a band who take the listener back in time to the 40’s and 50’s, with plenty of swing and shuffle in their repertoire, which in itself is fascinating as they tend not to rely on reinterpreting older classics but perform original material as well as newer musicians such as Mordy Ferber who they enjoy so much that they put together three of his numbers as a suite. Something else which is fascinating is how there are different arrangers in the band, so as well as Williamson there is Mordy Ferber (trombone), Matso Limtiaco (sax), and Keith Karns (trumpet) so they are all approaching music from different instruments, yet somehow, they link it all together. The result is an album of Golden Age which will be of major interest to anyone who is fond of this style of jazz, although I must confess the off-tune horns near the end of “21st Century” was a little off-putting for me. This is definitely an album I can see my dad enjoying, given this is the style he grew up listening to and I am sure there will be plenty of others as well.

Rating: 7/10