Sting at SEC...
Freed from what could, to him, have seemed the hard, narrow, rock-reggae path of the Police, Sting finds himself anew in the lush and extensive pastures of funk- tinged jazz. There are plusses and minuses but what does it all add up to?
His supporting players on Saturday night, as on his highly successful LP, 'The Dream of the Blue Turtles', are the biggest plus. Serious jazzers Kenny Kirkland, Omar Hakin, Darryll Jones, and Branford Marsalis rock solidly with an easy mastery. It's not quite jazz, not quite funk, but certainly very tasty in parts.
Branford's brother, classical and jazz trumpet wunderkind, Wynton, has apparently joked about disowning him for messing with this commercial stuff. To Wynton we say, "You would have been proud of him" and "Can you rap to the beat like Branford do (probably you could, if you wanted to)?"
Highlights consisted of a. frenetic Kirkland piano solo that could have gone on for several weeks without being a moment too long; Sting's voice; parts of Darryll Jones's bass solo; everything that issued from Branford's clarinet and tenor, and the Police songs. Always the Police songs.
The ensemble smouldered through 'Every Breath You Take', Sting and Branford did a wondrous 'Roxanne', and Sting alone did a moving 'Message in a Bottle'. Excellent though they all were, they reveal that something is lacking both in terms of what Sting has written post-Police and in terms of what was on offer on stage. In short, can you find spots for Messrs Copeland and Summers in this somewhere, Mr Sting?
(c) The Glasgow Herald by David Belcher
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CREATE A DISPLAY NAMEThe venue sting played was the SECC not the Armidilo..