Biography
Pony Poindexter stands among the earliest bop-focused jazz players who took up the soprano saxophone alongside their main instruments, yet he never received the wider acclaim his work merited while alive. Like countless reed players, he began on clarinet before moving to alto and then tenor. His first documented professional engagement came in 1940 with Sidney Desvigne in New Orleans; soon afterward he studied at the Candell Conservatory of Music in Oakland. He joined the Billy Eckstine Big Band in 1947 and toured intermittently with Eckstine through 1948–1950. Although he spent most of his life in the San Francisco Bay Area, Poindexter traveled for a stretch with Lionel Hampton in 1951–1952. Throughout the 1950s he kept busy leading and accompanying in neighborhood clubs. Neal Hefti, who had noticed Poindexter’s ability early, composed “Little Pony” for the Count Basie Orchestra in 1951, a feature first made famous by Wardell Gray; Jon Hendricks later supplied lyrics for the Lambert, Hendricks & Ross recording issued later that decade. From 1961 to 1963 Poindexter played in the vocal group’s touring band. While doubling on soprano during the 1960s he made single albums for Epic—where he was joined by top saxophonists including Eric Dolphy and Dexter Gordon—New Jazz, and Prestige. He relocated to Europe in 1963, worked with Annie Ross, and cut an obscure date for Session in 1969; he also appeared with Phil Woods, Lee Konitz, and Leo Wright on the Alto Summit session. After periods in Paris and eight years in Spain, he settled in Mannheim, Germany, in 1977 before returning to the United States and taking up residence again near San Francisco, where he recorded for Inner City the next year. He faded from view without earning the recognition he deserved. Starting in the 1990s and extending into the new century, European reissue labels began restoring several of his sessions, among them his 1962 Epic debut Pony’s Express, first reissued by Koch in 2001; the 1966 Frankfurt concert album Annie Ross & Pony Poindexter, originally released by Saba in 1967 and later reissued by MPS in 1993 and again in 2003; and the 1972 septet date In Barcelona, featuring local players plus his daughter Dina on two vocals, originally issued on Spiral Records as En Barcelona and reissued by Fresh Sound in 2004.
Albums
