Laurie Anderson's third proper studio album, coming over five years after 1984's Mister Heartbreak (1986's Home of the Brave was a film soundtrack), is a near-total departure from anything she had done before or, indeed, anything she did after. The most purely musical of Anderson's albums and the one on which she does the most actual singing (though her trademark deadpan spoken-word passages are still present and accounted for), Strange Angels seems to be Anderson's idea of a straightforward pop album.
32Jazz continues to reissue much of the former Muse label material; compiled here, much to the company's credit, are 11 tracks from Jimmy Ponder's days at Muse. As another product from Pittsburgh, one of the cradles of jazz, he honors that city through the title of this release, Steel City. Ponder is one of those few who strum the guitar with his thumb, like Wes Montgomery; also like Montgomery, he gets a very warm and soft sound from the stringed box. On this album, Ponder shows he is equally facile with romantic, soulful material, like "You Are too Beautiful," where he is backed by ace pianist Benny Green, and on the Duke Ellington classic "Solitude," where Big John Patton's organ and Bill Saxton's flute take the lead.
Ponder is a good guitarist in the Grant Green school, a fine soul/blues player. An excellent guitarist with a soulful sound and the ability to uplift any funky jazz date, Jimmy Ponder has appeared on many recordings during his long career, over 80 as a sideman and 15 as a leader. Ponder began playing guitar when he was 14 and considers Wes Montgomery and Kenny Burrell to be his two main early influences and Wes Montgomery later on.