This album was another brainchild of
Marshall Chess' regime at Chess Records and, in a sense, is of a piece with
Electric Mud by
Muddy Waters -- here, he's getting
Ramsey Lewis, supported by an orchestra conducted and arranged by
Charles Stepney, to do jazz improvisations on ten songs from
The Beatles (aka
The White Album). The results are a good deal more impressive and a lot less awkward than
Electric Mud,
Lewis and company being in far greater sympathy with this material than
Muddy Waters was with
Rolling Stones material. The orchestrations are occasionally a bit thick and treacly, but when
Lewis jumps in and his playing takes flight, songs such as "Julia" soar off in all manner of unexpected and delightful directions, while "Back in the U.S.S.R.," divorced from its
Chuck Berry sound, still serves as the basis for some funky improvisations by the pianist. The album probably didn't do much more for
Lewis' career than
Electric Mud did for
Muddy Waters, but it's a better fit with
Lewis and an enjoyable excursion. The cover art is also funny enough to almost make it worth the price of the LP, which was reissued in Japan in 2002 in 24-bit digital audio. [The 2005 reissue included bonus tracks.] ~ Bruce Eder