I’m not gonna pretend this is an essential album. However! As far as Rolling Stones-affiliated curios go, Jamming With Edward! is an interesting side hustle featuring three members of the then-world’s greatest rock band. Even if they were just messing around, Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts, and Bill Wyman couldn’t help making compelling music—especially with hugely talented session dudes such as Nicky Hopkins (a frequent accomplice on keys/piano for the Stones ca. 1967-1975) and guitarist Ry Cooder (ex-Captain Beefheart, ex-Ceyleib People) in tow.
Jamming is the operative word for this record—which is usually priced just above bargain-bin prices at most shops. (For those wondering, “Edward” was Hopkins’ nickname.) The back story is, the Stones were waiting for Keith Richards to show up in the studio in the momentous year of 1969 (always a dicey proposition back then), and figuring it not prudent to waste valuable time, they jammed their skinny asses off. The results are occasionally phenomenal—certainly more engrossing than side 6 of George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass—and Jamming somehow reached #33 on the US album chart.
Jagger dismissed Jamming in the original edition’s liner notes as “a nice piece of bullshit… which we cut one night in London, England while waiting for our guitar player to get out of bed. It was promptly forgotten (which may have been for the better)… I hope you spend longer listening to this record than we did recording it.” Yo, Mick—this is still way better than She’s The Boss.
First track “The Boudoir Stomp” is a blues-rock shit-kicker that rollicks at the same pace as the superior “Midnight Rambler.” It’s a spicy, hypnotic opening salvo, though, and you’d probably win some friends if you put it on at a bar’s jukebox. (They still have those, right?) The reverent version of Elmore James’ “It Hurts Me Too” thwarts the momentum, but it’s always nice to pay tribute to a blues hero and throw him some change, too.
“Edwards Thrump Up” (written by Hopkins, Cooder, and Watts) works up a swift head of steam and mesmerizes like some Delta blues mutation of krautrock. Seriously, Cooder’s guitar sometimes sounds like Neu!’s Michael Rother on the motorik klassik “Hallogallo.” Jagger drops in some spare harmonica and yells here and there while Wyman is the low-key, low-frequency hero with his thrusting thrums. Another ripper is the 11-minute “Blow With Ry,” the LP’s funkiest nugget. Got damn, Charlie is in the pocket here, almost like the Meters’ Zigaboo Modeliste, and Cooder is in lethal, slashing blues-rock mode. Mick convincingly declaims like the bluesman he sometimes pretends to be, albeit sounding as if he’s in the next room and wearing a balaclava.
Following those peaks, though, Jamming descends into inconsequential messing about with “Interlude à la El Hopo” before resuming to burn with the lean, fleet blues-rock of “Highland Fling.” Hopkins’ piano runs are truly stunning.
So, yeah, while the three Stones involved with Jamming probably forgot they even made this sporadically brilliant lark, you would do well to ignore Jagger’s belittling of it and cop a copy for some above-average cheap thrills. -Buckley Mayfield
