Jazz Articles about Ponga

Ponga: Ponga

by Derrick A. Smith
April 1, 2000

The comparison between Ponga and the early-70s groups of Miles and Herbie Hancock is obvious but not facile. Obvious points of comparison are the tension that exists between the unpredictability of the live sources and the postmodernist structuring achieved in-studio; the coexistence of groove and physicality with an amorphous, ambiguous improvisatory conceptualism; and the omnivorous aspect of the music which renders it both in- and outside of its contemporary milieau.

Ponga as an album and a group entity creates a ...