Jimmy Ponder CDs

Somebody's Child  / Something to Ponder  / James Street  /  Soul Eyes  /  Thumbs  / Jump

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Tim Berens Interviews Jimmy Ponder

Introduction

By Amin Sharif 

Jimmy Ponder has been making great jazz for at least a decade or more. He is a conveyer of jazz performed smoothly as opposed to what passes today for smooth jazz. This simply means that Ponder plays real jazz in a manner that has groove, that is, undeniably linked to the guitar tradition of cats like Kenny Burrell. This is not your Sunday brunch jazz, nor the kind of jazz that is background music for upscale posers who would never go anywhere near Parker or Mingus.

Jimmy's music is more cerebral than the kind of poison you hear on those One-oh-One point whatever stations that are popping up in every major radio market. You know those stations that push Kenny G Christmas CDs. I simply love the way he plays the jazz guitar. His CD—Something to Ponder—is a great example of a musician that can touch all the bases—all styles of real jazz guitar playing. What other cat would present something as classic as Duke Ellington's "Satin Doll" and Pharaoh Sanders' "The Creator Has a Master Plan" on the same album. And, Jimmy swings on both cuts. 

Jimmy is one of those guys that may never be fully appreciated but all but the true jazz fan. I was introduced to Jimmy by a Nigerian cab drive in Baltimore on a simmer summer day. As he drove me home from downtown, Jimmy had me chillin' all the way home. And, as I stepped out of the cab, "The Creator Has a Master Plan" was just coming through the cab's speakers. "That's a Coltrane cut," the cabbie told me. "No," I corrected him. "That was cut with Pharaoh Sanders' on sax and a Leon Thomas vocal."

The cabbie smiled, waved and pulled off. My brother, Jamal, and I set out to find the CD, which is no small feat in a city that is going over to hip hop, club music, and fake jazz. I was glad I got it. Everything on the CD swings. And, after tracking down many other of Ponder's work, I can say that I have never been disappointed.

I am glad to post on CBJ with the kind consent of Brother Tim Berens an interview that he did with Ponder a few years back. I love this interview because it is an interplay between two guitarists. Too many times jazz critics are less concerned about the humanity of the artist than the importance of his work. Jimmy comes off fully human in this interview. This makes the interview not only an artifact for jazz historians but for real jazz fans who want flesh and blood of strings and keys of their instrument. I would venture to say that if folks were as concerned with the nature of Parker's humanity as they were with his riffs, there might be a lot more of Parker's music around. But that is grist for another conversation.

I am deeply indebted to Tim for his generosity in allowing CBJ to post this interview. It is guys like Tim that make it a pleasure to be in cyberspace. If you dig the interview, please check out his site www.Timberens.com . He's got more great stuff for you to read and enjoy. It is our hope that Tim will send in interviews and articles that we can post on our site. So, Tim, when you read this, know that our doors are always open to you. Thanks a lot.

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 The Interview

Tim Berens: Did you work much when you were young?

Jimmy Ponder: I would always make it a point to try to work as much as possible, regardless of what I knew.

I would take whatever I did know everywhere with me. More times than not I would fall flat on my face if it was a jazz engagement. There were clubs on the north side here in Pittsburgh, when I was 15 or 16, where I was told that if I didn't play to the crowd's satisfaction, I might get beat up. And I took the engagement anyway and I played.

Tim Berens: How much did you practice as a kid?

Jimmy Ponder: When I was a kid I would practice an average of six hours a day. And I continued that when I went on the road. Charles Earland came through Pittsburgh—it was 1963. He came to The Hurricane with the Charles Earland trio. And the guitar player was asleep on the job and I had gotten a copy of his latest 45 entitled "Daily Dozen" and I learned the guitar solo backwards and forwards. And Bertie Dunlap, who was at the time the owner of The Hurricane, she allowed me to play and I sat in and I played that song to death for Charles Earland. And I told him "My mother is not gonna let me go out of town until I get my diploma. So 2 years later, he came back. He said "Are you ready to go?" and I said "Yes, indeed". And I never looked back until four and 1/2 years ago, when I moved back to Pittsburgh.

Tim Berens: You had very little formal training?

Jimmy Ponder: None. None whatsoever. I've had only one guitar lesson and that was in around '66 from a guitarist that worked with Jimmy MacGriffe name Thornell Schwartz. He had me come over to his place one afternoon and I sat and I listened and I learned a great deal. And that was the only lesson I have ever had.

Other than that I've sat and I've listened and deciphered and I've taught myself. But also that's kind of selfish. The world teaches you whether you want the lesson or not. The more people you work with the more you're exposed to and you take that home and you put that into your scheme of things.

Tim Berens: Are you a good reader?

Jimmy Ponder: No. I haven't done a lot of reading studio work or stage shows where you have to read, so consequently my reading is not a particularly high level. But I do teach basic fundamental reading to any guitar player who comes into my presence to deal with studying. I teach them how to teach themselves how to read.

Tim Berens: Do you now play exclusively for a living?

Jimmy Ponder: I try to make a decent living playing the music and dealing with the performance side of it and then to teach and then writing and recording. Everything supplements everything and it's still not enough.

Tim Berens: I think it's interesting that a player at your level has to teach to supplement the income.

Jimmy Ponder: Well like I said, it's still not enough. I live below the poverty level and that is a travesty. It is a terrible thing because I know what I do with the guitar and there's no guitar player that's aware of jazz that is not aware of me. But my time is coming as long as I persevere and continue doing good things. I got into it loving it and you're never paid for what you love. You're never paid what you're worth.

Tim Berens: Do you like recording?

Jimmy Ponder: I love it. Recording is quite a challenge. If you're not prepared, the recording equipment will let you know. If you are prepared it's like nothing else in the world—it's like having a baby.

I put everything I have into the music, and hopefully the spirituality about my music is what prevails. It's not the mathematics of it or the articulation, in so far as dealing with the amount of notes I can play within a given span of time. It is how it feels to the people that hear the music. How it makes them feel. That is my purpose—to please.

Tim Berens: Do you ever use a pick when you play?

Jimmy Ponder:  18 years ago, yeah. Until I saw Wes, I was using a pick. I was a speed freak after hearing Pat Martino and George Benson at The Hurricane. I only saw George one time with Jack McDuff and it was amazing. I had been working towards that long before because I had listened to a radio station from Rochester, WHAM. Harry Abrahms would play guitarists from Europe and from all over the country and I would listen all night, every night till the wee hours, get up and go to school, come home and practice what I could retain from listening to the radio.

Tim Berens: And when you heard Wes play, you stopped using a pick?

Jimmy Ponder: When I heard "The man is not using a pick," I said, "Yeah, Right." While I was working with Charles Earland we did a job in Atlanta. And Wes and his brothers, "The Master Sounds" were working at another club. I went over to the club to hear this man and ended up sitting in. I had the nerve at 18 to sit in on Wes's gig. His brothers were insulted, but I had a whole rhythm section with me and I played a Kenny Burrell tune called "Chitlins Con Carne" on Wes's guitar. I had to touch his guitar and hope that something out of that guitar would seep into my bones, and it did. 

He [Wes Montgomery] heard me play and came up to the stage and said, "Yeah, I like what you are doing." He would come over to the club I was playing after he was done and he would sit right in front of the band stand. He would sit there and have his breakfast and my heart was ready to jump out of my throat.

Years later, he brought people up to Harlem to the Club Baron. One lady worked for Atlantic records. She was a good friend of Wes's. He told her about hearing me in Atlanta. And he told her that I was his legacy. I would carry on his form—his expression of the music and the approach. She didn't tell me that until after he passed.

Tim Berens:: Do you, at your level, get excited when you are around a big name player like, say, Phil Woods?

Jimmy Ponder: Well, it is all about mutual respect. I have earned the right to be around whomever I'm around. I wouldn't care who it is—it could be the Pope.

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More Comments from Jimmy Ponder

Jimmy Ponder Bio

Jimmy Ponder, 48 years of age, is well known among serious lovers of jazz guitar. He has played with many of the finest jazz musicians of the era including Dizzy Gillespie, Stanley Turrentine, Groove Holmes, Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Big Band, Hank Crawford, Jimmy MacGriffe, Jack McDuff, and Sonny Stitt.

He began playing at age 11 and is a self-taught musician. While he did not attend college, he now teaches at several colleges and is an artist-in-residence at Duquesne University. Even though he is a south paw, Ponder learned to play right handed. He began his musical life playing "doo-wop" music, and his earliest influences included The Temptations and early Stevie Wonder.

He quickly fell in love with jazz and has played jazz exclusively for almost all of his professional life. His played his first professional gig at age 11, and was playing clubs in Philadelphia regularly by age 13. He has played on approximately 80 albums in his life.

He now records for Muse Records, and has released four albums including Come On Down, which earned a four-star review in Downbeat magazine and remained on the jazz charts for several months.

Tim Berens Self-Portrait http://timberens.com/yourhost/selfportrait.htm Originally published in the March, 1995 issue of the newsletter of the Cincinnati Jazz Guitar Society.

posted 30 August 2005

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update 3 July 2008