StLJN Saturday at the Movies: The Blue Note All-Stars featuring Javon Jackson and Greg Osby

This week's videos were found while searching for some footage of tenor saxophonist Javon Jackson, who will appear at Jazz at the Bistro from January 16 through January 19. As it turns out, there's not much video of Jackson as a leader available online, but these two clips feature him as part of the Blue Note All-Stars, a short-lived group that did one CD and a couple of tours together together in the late 1990s.

The idea, which came from a record company executive, was to bring together some of the young musicians associated at the time with the Blue Note label, and so Jackson was teamed with St. Louis native Greg Osby on alto sax, Bill Stewart on drums, pianist Kevin Hays, trumpeter Tim Hagans and the marvelously named Essiet Okun Essiet on bass.

While their name might suggest some sort of hard bop or soul/jazz repertory group, the All-Stars actually did original music composed by the various members of the band, and in these two cuts, "Our Trip" and "Twist and Out," you can hear some interesting contrasts in approach between Jackson and Osby, as well as some very capable playing from the rest of the musicians.