Proclaimed by Keith Richards as “one of the best bass players in the world,” Darryl Jones made his Maui debut on Sept. 5 at Hua Momona Farms in Kapalua, as part of the three-day Maui Music & Food Experience benefit for Lahaina.

Jones subsequently teamed with fellow Rolling Stones’ bandmate Bernard Fowler on Sept. 6 at the Ritz-Carlton Maui, Kapalua for a benefit performance that featured Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Going to Come,” with Mick Fleetwood on percussion. And on Sept. 7 at the MACC, he joined a host of musicians to pay tribute to Jimi Hendrix and his time on Maui.

“He was a really big figure in my early playing,” says Jones, who has recorded and toured with the Rolling Stones since 1993. “I think ‘Purple Haze’ is probably one of the first five or 6 songs that I learned how to play when I first started. He’s such an iconic player and such a huge influence on a number of levels.”

Besides playing with the Stones, Jones’ remarkable resume includes Sting, Eric Clapton, Peter Gabriel, Herbie Hancock, Neil Young, Madonna, and Ziggy Marley. And his first major gig was playing with jazz legend Miles Davis.

Jones entree to joining the Stones initially began through meeting Keith Richards. “I met Keith Richards through (drummer) Steve Jordan,” he explains. “I was a big fan of the ‘Talk Is Cheap’ record that they were working on at the time I was in New York playing with Miles. I heard that music and I thought, if that’s rock and roll, then I really want to play it.”

“A few years later, a friend called me and said, ‘I heard Bill Wyman is leaving the Stones.’ And there the saga began. I auditioned for them a couple of times, and they hired me. I got the nod from all of them. Charlie (Watts) felt that I took the music quite seriously, and he was impressed by that.”

Contributing to Stones’ albums like “Voodoo Lounge,” “Bridges to Babylon,” “A Bigger Bang” and “Blue & Lonesome,” one wonders what kind of input he has on songs?

“Keith is much more hands off,” he says. “He’s very much more, ‘hey man, you’re the bass player.’ He plays bass himself. So some of the stuff you will have ideas and lines on. But Mick is a little bit more hands on. We talk about bass lines, and recently he’s very much into the distorted bass sound and a little more hard edge playing.”

In his autobiography “Life,” Keith Richards wrote, “Darryl melted into the band real quick. Darryl, in my estimation, is a giant.”

The British daily The Telegraph hailed Jones as “the Rolling Stones’ secret weapon,” who “holds the band together.”

Growing up in Chicago, he absorbed music from both his parents. “The vocal music that I write is directly connected to the music of my childhood,” he says. “James Brown and Sly Stone and Curtis Mayfield. My mother loved Curtis Mayfield and blues, and my dad loved jazz music.”

Was his father impressed when he joined Miles Davis’ band at the age of 21? “It was pretty cool,” he says. “It was about as cool a thing that could happen to a kid who grew up in the kind of household that I grew up, listening to Sly Stone and Miles, Curtis Mayfield and Count Basie. Of course, we weren’t playing the music that my dad loved most from Miles. I remember telling Miles my dad turned me on to the early stuff. My dad loves the earlier stuff, not so much the new stuff. Miles looked at me and said, ‘f*** your dad.’ I went and told my dad that and he doubled up laughing. He thought that was really funny.”

And then there was Sting, who, when he left the Police, shifted musical direction hiring a bunch of young jazz players like Jones and Branford Marsalis and released the brilliant live album “Bring on the Night.”

“I’ve been a real big fan” of the Police,” he says. “A friend had turned him on to their music. ‘He said, ‘check out this band, they’re called the Police and the bass player writes the music and sings. And to think that only five years later, I was 17 when I got turned on to that, I was 23 when I joined Sting. It was really great. He wrote really interesting music that allowed us a pretty extensive playground to go around. Incredible band. Kenny Kirkland, Omar (Hakim), Dolette McDonald and Janis Pendarvis, and Branford.”

Featured in the documentary “Darryl Jones: In the Blood,” he talks in the opening about music as a spiritual practice. A TM meditator, he recalls, “My mom gave me a book called ‘Yoga and Psychotherapy: The Evolution of Consciousness’ when I was about 11. It opened my eyes to a slightly different kind of spirituality. And I had a dog when I was around that age. He ran away and really broke my heart. I found a certain kind of solace in playing music. That’s when I started learning about harmonics and stuff like that, the kind of beauty of that sound on the bass. It helped me through it. That’s kind of where the spark of that came from. The more that you give yourself over to the music, the more of a spiritual pursuit it is in a way.”

Crafting his own songs, he released the soulful vocal track “American Dream,” that has hints of classic Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield. He’s currently working on a score for a film about South African artist Nelson Makamo, “a really brilliant painter and artist,” and he may hit the road again with the Stones next year.

“I’m looking forward to getting a band together for next spring and both before and after the next Stones’ tour,” he says.

As far as new Stone’s music, “there’s a lot of material that they’ve already recorded, quite a lot from this last record as well. So I think there’s material for a new record. I think the band is playing pretty well right now, despite having lost Charlie. They made a very good choice with Steve (Jordan on drums). He’s definitely brought some energy, kind of in the same way that when I joined the band, I brought slightly different energy than Bill (Wyman).”

Touring and recording with the Stones for so many years has been “just incredibly exciting,” he says. “We finished the (2024) tour at the end of July. It’s always going to be an amazing thing. Stones’ fans are a special breed, and bathing in that energy is just remarkable.”

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