BY MATTHEW ADKINS
Pony Boy All-Star Big Band, This Is Now (Live at Boxley’s)
Pony Boy Records, July 2024
The Pony Boy All-Star Big Band calls their most recent album This Is Now, a phrase reminiscent of Ezra Pound’s famous dictum, “Make it new.” There’s a singular focus here on the moment, the instant of the note as it is played. There’s a doubling as well, though. This Is Now gives us both the moment and the reflection of the moment, and it sums this album up perfectly.
This Is Now is full of energy, from the cymbal that opens the first tune, “Harrod’s Creek,” to the audacious swing of “Bahia,” which closes the album. Certainly, the recording gains enormous energy from being recorded live at Boxley’s. Production values are so stellar it sounds as though it were recorded in the studio, often at the expense of the crowd’s appreciative applause. The band is plenty raucous, though, clearly driven to almost athletic heights by performing live.
There’s a deeper wellspring of energy here as well. Good big bands possess a tight sound only achieved after endless hours of playing together. Getting a roomful of virtuosos to play the same note at the same instant is much harder than one might think. The real extraordinary big bands, such as these All-Stars, operate on a whole other level of precision. Big Pony plays loose, with an almost uncontrolled rawness only possible by working in perfect synchronicity. They don’t need to hit notes at the same time. They exist as one.
Pulling off this magic trick has a lot to do with director Greg Williamson’s recognition that the right chords and a solid rhythm section can hold disparate voices together and keep everything from falling apart. Credit, too, the band’s bass trombone line, unsung heroes who provide depth and richness at every point.
In some places, all this energy is harnessed in the service of traditional upbeat big band tunes, like the toe-tapping classic “I Won’t Dance.” In other spots, the band channels a more romantic, if not less urgent feel, as in the standard “I Fall In Love Too Easily.” “Rabin” fairly drips along, unfolding at its own pace. In other spots, energy transforms into experiment, as with Conner Eisenmenger’s angular trombone solo in “Mr. X.” There are sections of “Geo Rose” where the “band” seems to melt away, seemingly replaced by a combo. The album contains diverse styles, voices, pacing, and influences—there’s a focus here on new arrangements of heritage music including band favorites like Bill Ramsay, Randy Lintott, Ted Bowden, and Larry Fuller. Yet, everything remains held together by that same deep pool of chords and rhythm and by the players’ inimitable feel for one another.
In the end, there’s something for everyone in This Is Now. “This” is all things—past, present, future, classics, experiments, fast, slow, joyful, sad. In the animated hands of the Big Pony All-Star Big Band, all of it exists in the Now.
