The Music Company

The Music Company were a studio-only group formed for the express purpose of recording a jazz version of the Beatles' Rubber Soul LP shortly after that album came out in the mid-'60s. The LP, called (logically enough) Rubber Soul Jazz, presented fairly straightforward jazz-pop covers of every song on the U.S. version of the Rubber Soul album, following the exact same track sequence. It was an exploitation LP, pure and simple, but as such things go, it was pretty good. Featuring some of the top pop session musicians in Hollywood (drummer Hal Blaine, pianist Don Randi, guitarists Tommy Tedesco and James Burton), it was produced by Marshall Lieb (who'd been in the Teddy Bears with Phil Spector), and the arrangements were fairly vivacious while maintaining the melodic strength of the Beatles' compositions. Originally released on the small Mirwood label, it was reissued on CD by BGP in 2006.