25th year reunion of Uncle Festive at the Catalina Jazz Festival-October 7, 2011!

4/2/10- JOHN PONDEL album review in this month's issue of Jazztimes!

12/30/09- "JOHN PONDEL" album  makes top 25 jazz albums of 2009 list on WVPE's Jazz By The Border hosted by Lee Burdoff. http://wvpe.org/border.html

"JOHN PONDEL" album Debuted ON JAZZWEEK TOP 50 CHART 8/30/09

 My first solo album with Scott Colley (bass) and Marivaldo Dos Santos (percussion) is finally finished and is now  available at CD Baby, Itunes and Amazon. It has a Brazilian vibe for sure with a dose of modern acoustic jazz and soul jazz too. It was really cool working with those guys and everyone else involved. I'm really excited about it...especially because it's my first solo album after so many years as a collaborator and co-leader.

It was fun watching the new album hit the Jazzweek top 50 last August.We made it to about 60 radio stations across the US and several in Canada. NPR's national show "Morning Edition" also played several cuts since August including the one's featuring Dave Binney (Make It Nice and Mr. Obvious).