Tenor saxophonist Javon Jackson and cohorts have found plenty of fertile ground in Pleasant Valley. Using Larry Goldings's down-home organ as a backdrop and Dave Stryker's light-fingered guitar as a foil, Jackson has managed to evoke the creative days of early fusion (in particular, the Tony Williams Lifetime) while fitting in perfectly with the lounge-jazz mainstream. Jackson has a dollop of funk in his sophisticated tone, which he adds judiciously, giving a little juice to his complex, serpentine lines. Combine this with the sensitive interaction of the group, the relative rhythmic freedoms of drummer Billy Drummond, and the psychedelic rock-guitar effects, and you have much more than a mere copy of the '50s organ-tenor sound. What you have is a cauldron of creative possibilities welded to an earthy, unhurried feel. And that feeling is, indeed, a pleasant one: a form of relaxed stimulation. --Wally Shoup
Pleasant Valley,Javon Jackson,Blue Note Records,Hard Bop,Jazz,Jazz Music,Pop
Jazz Music:
- Poesy [Original recording remastered]
- Q'd Up
- Relax'n With Chico Randall [Import] [Original recording remastered]
- Reunion
- Rhapsody in Rhythm
- Saxophone Colossus [Gold CD]
- See You in Zanzibar
- Serious Fun
- Sessions
- Songs Of Autumn
Jazz Music
Au-Deca Des Apparances [Import]
Atlantic Bridge & Singles [Import] [Original recording remastered]
Beethoven: Nine Symphonies [Box set]