An album of songs by
the Rolling Stones hardly sounds like promising material for any jazz release, even in the hands of a master guitarist like
Joe Pass. Featuring ten of their hits with arrangements by
Bob Florence and an unidentified cast of musicians, other than tenor saxophonist
Bill Perkins, this LP was clearly one for a paycheck when most jazz players were scratching for work. Unlike the works of Lennon and McCartney of
the Beatles,
the Rolling Stones' music doesn't lend itself to jazz.
Pass doesn't solo with the gusto one came to expect from his many great sessions from the 1970s to the end of his life for Pablo and elsewhere. Even the closing blues "Stones Jazz," credited to Florence and
Pass, sounds severely dated and not worth a second hearing to today's jazz listener. A very unlikely candidate for reissue on CD, this record will be sought by
Joe Pass fanatics only. ~ Ken Dryden