Javon Jackson - Pleasant Valley (1999)

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