Posey Royale: Two Albums, One Swing Vision

Posey Royale is an Asheville, North Carolina–based swing band that has, until now, gone unmentioned in The Syncopated Times. That says more about the way regional swing scenes tend to operate than about the band itself. Listening to their two albums together, Premier Strut from 2020 and the recently released The Real Low-Down, makes a strong case for introducing Posey Royale properly to our readers, not as a one-off tribute project, but as a leader-driven ensemble with a clear aesthetic and a growing sense of purpose.

The constant is pianist and arranger James Posedel, whose background helps explain much of what this band values. Posedel is not only a working swing pianist but also a professional piano technician, tuning and maintaining instruments for studios, concert halls, and institutions around Asheville. That dual relationship with the instrument as player and caretaker shows up clearly in the music. Posey Royale is explicitly piano-driven, rhythmically and structurally, and the arrangements feel built outward from the keyboard rather than laid on top of it. The stride sound drives everything across both albums, working in close partnership with the front line.

Premier Strut functions as the band’s introduction and mission statement. It is not a concept album, but it is clearly curated. The Bandcamp info tab spells this out plainly, citing a lineup of “powerhouse jazz composers and innovators” whose work anchors the record: Lil Hardin Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Mildred Bailey, Ella Fitzgerald, Lionel Hampton, Walter Bishop, Sr., and Fats Waller, alongside later figures such as Les Paul and Mort Garson. That breadth matters. On this album Posey Royale is thinking carefully about lineage, influence, and how repertoire traveled across decades.

The album mixes close transcriptions with respectful re-imaginings, and the emphasis is always on feel. These are arrangements meant to work for dancers first, but they never sound rushed or generic. The rhythm section—upright bass, guitar, and drums—keeps a relaxed but steady four, and the horns stay within a vocabulary informed by late-1930s and early-1940s practice.

Vocals on Premier Strut are handled by Whitney Moore, whose presence fits the album’s role as an opening statement for the band. The focus here is less on vocal personality and more on establishing Posey Royale’s instrumental language and arranging priorities, they sound impressively solid and in control of the material. Heard now, the record already hints at where Posedel’s interests would deepen later. The inclusion of Lil Hardin material feels like foreshadowing rather than coincidence.

It’s also worth noting that Premier Strut is available as a physical CD, something that still matters to some collectors, in addition to being downloadable on Bandcamp and streamable on Spotify. It features a larger band than the new album—ten musicians versus seven—and includes some male vocals by Posedel himself and by drummer Russ Wilson, who appears on both albums. One highlight for me is instrumental: perhaps it’s my Christmas-adjacent mood writing in mid-December, but the rendition of Fats Waller’s “Jitterbug Waltz” is genuinely beautiful. Overall, Premier Strut is a buoyant, joyful album, full of rocking swing and smiling numbers like “I Want to Be Happy,” here based on an obscure 1941 Danish Odeon recording by Leo Mathisen’s Orchestra.

If Premier Strut establishes Posey Royale’s range, The Real Low-Down sharpens the focus. Released in December 2025, the new album is framed on its Bandcamp page as a tribute to Lil Hardin Armstrong, described there as a central creative force whose “megalithic joy and personality” deserve renewed attention. This is not a strict “all Hardin compositions” program, but rather a record that places her at the center of a broader musical world.

Hardin’s later career is often overlooked. By the 1940s and early 1950s she was active as a pianist, singer, and bandleader, performing regularly and recording material that bridged stride piano, swing, and blues-inflected popular song. She was not merely a historical adjunct to Louis Armstrong, but a working musician navigating a changing musical landscape on her own terms.

Several selections on The Real Low-Down connect directly to her legacy. “Clip Joint” and “I’m On a Sit-Down Strike for Rhythm” are both closely associated with Hardin’s compositional voice and recording history. Other songs on the album, while not specifically associated with her, reflect the kinds of material she performed or the musical circles she moved in, including blues-oriented and rhythm-driven numbers that align naturally with her style.

The album description itself is downright poetic: “The Real Low-Down is a lovingly-arranged, 13-track presentation of love, loss, and redemption from every angle… a private account of one heart’s search for the steadfast place where shadows fall.” Flowery, perhaps, but that emotional intent is borne out in the sequencing and performances.

The personnel shift between albums helps that concept land. Caroline Scruggs takes over vocal duties, and her presence gives the album a clearer narrative center. She delivers lyrics directly, with a blues-aware sensibility and considerably more dramatic flair, whether the song calls for joy or distress. The personality she brings, combined with the thoughtful track order, makes The Real Low-Down something of an emotional roller coaster. Her singing helps cement the contrast between the two albums: Premier Strut feels like a demonstration of what powerhouse musicians can do in a swing setting with a strong female vocal presence, while The Real Low-Down feels like a band with a more established personality exploring a tighter range of music behind a female star. I suspect repeated listening will have you favoring one album for a while, then siding with the other.

The rhythm section is a particular strength. Trevor Stoia’s bass remains a grounding force, while Adam Rose’s guitar provides steady time and subtle color, occasionally stepping forward, as on “I’m On a Sit-Down Strike for Rhythm.” Russ Wilson, a veteran drummer and bandleader with decades of experience in swing and big band settings, brings authority and restraint to the kit. His playing reinforces the sense that this music is meant to move bodies, not just impress ears.

On the front line, Matt Fattal’s trumpet and Gary Rodberg’s clarinet and tenor saxophone add contrast and texture without crowding the arrangements. Rodberg has a warm, idiomatic reed sound that sits comfortably inside these charts. Posedel’s playing is marvelous at any tempo. Call me a softy, but “Azalea” was a highlight on this album in much the same way “Jitterbug Waltz” was on the first. The smaller band suits the more personal feel of the project.

Recorded at Echo Mountain in Asheville, The Real Low-Down sounds present and unforced. You hear the room, the air, and the ensemble working together. Like the earlier album, it can be streamed on Spotify and downloaded on Bandcamp, but as of this moment no CD.

Posey Royale is part of a broader Carolinas swing scene that has remained largely under the national jazz radar despite steady activity and an outsized number of excellent albums. Musicians overlap between bands, dance events drive much of the work, and the emphasis is on repertoire that functions in real rooms for real audiences. That scene has not appeared often enough in these pages in recent years, though figures like Laura Windley and Keenan McKenzie have justly graced our cover. Keenan appears on Premiere Strut.

Taken together, Premier Strut and The Real Low-Down show a band clarifying its identity. The first album establishes Posey Royale as serious, historically aware practitioners of swing. The second refines that vision, placing Lil Hardin Armstrong at the center and allowing the band’s strengths to come into sharper focus.

Posey Royale prove that the Carolinas remain a hotbed of swing of the highest order that jazz fans nationally need to be following. The area may even be worth a well timed listening trip. Because of the outstanding musicianship on these records, I would recommend that even readers who think of themselves as exclusively interested in pre-swing jazz give these them a spin. They reward those who stay seated just as much as those who get up and dance.

Posey Royale
Premier Strut (2020)
The Real Low-Down (2025)