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Tuesday is ‘Someday’ for lunchbox concert by Poncé, Williams
David Poncé is not the first person to record an album of standards.
To say there are hundreds of such collections drawing from the Great American Songbook might be an understatement.
But Poncé might be the first to record an album of standards specifically for his grandchildren.
Yet that was the purpose of “Someday Songs,” a release with Sandy Williams, at the outset.
There’s more to these songs, though, a fact that Poncé acknowledges in the liner notes written directly to his five granddaughters.
“I came to this concept of ‘Someday Songs’ because these songs gain meaning as we learn and grow,” Poncé wrote. “What might be enjoyed now for the engaging notes and rhythms will be more someday, as lyrics and melodic movements echo and validate experiences.”
What Poncé did not anticipate was how much meaning his renditions of these classics might take on to other people. He’s been learning since the album was released in May 2021.
On Tuesday, Poncé and Williams will have the chance to reach a new audience with a lunchbox concert at Music on the Square, 21 N. Indiana St., Greencastle. The 11:30 a.m. event is free, though spots may be reserved at https://tinyurl.com/2p93dtv5, as well as reserving a lunch for a charge. The first 20 senior residents to register may choose a free lunch.
Poncé emphasizes he is not a working musician, but a father of four grown children living in Lafayette who grew up singing these songs. His passion for music came back to the forefront in a discussion with his wife.
“I’d like to hire a small group of professional musicians and sing some of these songs like I grew up listening to on my mom’s Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra records,” Poncé said at the time.
“You mean like a jazz jam?” wife Jennie countered.
“What’s that?” Poncé asked.
He soon learned, attending infrequent jams in Lafayette before learning that one such event takes place weekly at the Jazz Kitchen in Indianapolis. He soon became a regular participant, trekking from Lafayette to the northside of Indianapolis each Monday.
Then Covid happened.
Even when the Jazz Kitchen reopened in November 2020, Poncé had fears of what an infection might do to his rediscovered love of singing.
“I was feeling pretty vulnerable about the daily crises that came as hailstorms of information and misinformation, battering all of us during this divisive, difficult, dangerous, sometimes depressing period,” Poncé wrote. “It occurred to me, ‘What if I’m struck by this lung-wrecking pandemic, left incapable of singing? What if my granddaughters won’t remember how much I have loved singing?’”
The idea grew from there. He mentioned it to musicians Fred Withrow and Bob Wilson, who said, “Call Sandy Williams.”
Yes, that Sandy Williams — Greencastle native Alexander “Sandy” Williams, perhaps still best known locally for his work with the Average House Band, but whose wide-ranging musical bona fides include work with John Mellencamp, Michael Feinstein, Steve Earle, Liza Minnelli, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Carrie Newcomer and Bill Gaither, among others.
It quickly became clear that Williams was the guy when Poncé mentioned his vision was based on four albums Ella Fitzgerald made with Joe Pass between 1973 and 1986.
“The first thing Sandy did was send me a picture of his best friend and Joe Pass standing on Joe’s patio,” Poncé said.
That’s a Greencastle story, as Williams’ lifelong friend Denny Hardwick came to know Pass well before the jazz guitarist’s death in 1994, with Williams even meeting Pass several times.
“Denny Hardwick was actually really good friends with Joe Pass, used to house sit for him and even wrote a book with him,” Williams recalled.
Acknowledging he is no Joe Pass, Williams set about pouring himself into the project.
“It was fun,” he said. “It was the middle of the pandemic, and I was playing a lot by myself.”
Williams would read the sheet music only to realize it wasn’t the same as the Bing Crosby recording, for example. Then he would figure out the arrangement.
“I did a lot of homework,” he said.
The album was recorded over the course of several months, three or four songs at a time, at Aire Born studios in Indianapolis. Poncé is still amazed at the care Williams put into it.
“I didn’t think this would be interesting to anybody else, and by anybody, I mean Sandy Williams,” Poncé said. “I paid him for his work, but I still owe him so much.”
Once the CDs were pressed and sent to his granddaughters, Poncé got an even better surprise when he arrived for a family visit in Texas, where granddaughter Lucy was waiting.
“She met me at the door and said, ‘Grandpa, I want you to sing to me,’” Poncé said, clearly emotional. “That moment I thought, if nothing else comes of this, this is a win.”
Much of the week that followed was spent in a hammock, singing with Lucy.
The meanings of the songs are getting through as well. One of Poncé’s other four granddaughters, who live in eastern Indiana, made an observation recently.
“That song, ‘I Can’t Give You Anything but Love,’ it’s just not true,” she said. “You give us lunch, you take us to the children’s museum, you give us gifts.”
Thrilled to be discussing the meaning of the song, Poncé explained that those weren’t his words, but it was true for the narrator of the song.
It’s a big reward for someone who thought they would get the album, look at it, listen a little and then put it in a box, only to rediscover it someday.
“I got what I wanted through the project,” Poncé said. “The long Covid fears have hopefully gone away. What remains is the project I did with this wonderful, friendly, super-talented person.”
His collaborator had a different idea.
“Sandy wouldn’t let this go until we got to do a gig with this somewhere,” Poncé said.
Enter the DePauw School of Music, where Williams remains a guitar instructor.
“We’re really grateful to the DePauw School of Music for giving us the chance to play publicly for the first time,” Williams said, adding that he’d like to have future gigs with more of a band.
At this point, Tuesday is someday for this collection and its first live set. The plan is to do more than half the album during the 50-minute set.
“I told Sandy that one of the things that I might do for a couple of these songs is to tell the stories,” Poncé said.
“I’ll try not to tell 60 years worth of Greencastle stories when I’m there,” Williams said, “like not saying how I remember riding in the cart in this building when it was the A&P.”