As a pop musician, Sting has been on a pinnacle for years, particularly as the founder of the Police. Far from being merely a smashing commercial success, this handsome and talented Briton has, in many ways, attracted a legion of fans as vocal and devoted as those of the Beatles.
But when one starts to dabble in jazz, in fact to label oneself as the leader of a jazz band, the ground becomes a bit more like quicksand. In the post-Police concert film 'Bring on the Night', Sting was full of pretension, making it sound as though he was Louis Armstrong reinventing one of the seminal jazz bands of the 1920s.
Well, based on the two and a half hour Saturday night Pacific Amphitheatre show by Sting's latest band, let's just say that ol' Satchmo is very, very safe in his niche.
A performance by Sting and company is about as far removed from a truly satisfying jazz concert as a granola bar is from a 10-course Cantonese meal.
Without doubt, the band is populated with stellar jazz musicians, most notably pianist Kenny Kirkland and tenor saxophonist Branford Marsalis. In fact, legend has it that Branford's brother, trumpeter Wynton, actually kicked him out of his own combo because of his association with Sting. One can easily see why - brother Branford, despite possessing a sumptuous tone and unusual improvisational ability, was relegated about 99 percent of the time Saturday to playing ensemble lines on his weaker instrument, the soprano sax, and was afforded negligible room to solo.
In fact, the entire eight-piece band is really nothing more than window dressing for the self-possessed Sting, who churned out tight but ear-splitting renditions of some old Police staples such as 'Walking in Your Footsteps', 'King of Pain' and 'Don't Stand So Close to Me'.
To his credit, Sting did manage to have some fun with the old material.
After he broke into one of his loveliest melodies, 'Every Breath You Take', he did something literally jazzy with it, showing how a chord progression can be molded into an entirely different song. 'Cherokee' became 'Ko-Ko' for Charlie Parker, 'Every Breath You Take' modulated into 'Let's Twist Again (Like We Did Last Summer'.)
Sting also offered up plenty of material from his 'Dream of the Blue Turtles' album as well as most of his latest release, 'Nothing Like the Sun'. None of the tunes on those two platters have the melodic staying power of the Police stuff, but some tunes played Saturday night, especially 'We'll Be Together' and 'Rock Steady', do have that pleasing Police-ish reggae beat.
And Sting is quite underrated as a guitarist - he showed his skills most convincingly on both electric and acoustic instruments, the latter often played in lush, romantic, flamenco style.
Not surprisingly, the capacity crowd, mostly female, ate up every note. But unfortunately, while all this was going on, the likes of Marsalis and Kirkland were left with the opportunity to do little more than noodle. Kirkland, a very fluent bebop-ish pianist working out on an electric keyboard, dashed out a couple of nice little solos, particularly on a slow tune that might even have been 'Summertime'.
At least Kirkland looked like a jazz musician, sitting there hunched over the keys in a weathered porkpie hat. Marsalis fared much, much worse. Often, he would lapse into a sound reminiscent of the old Yakkity Sax record. It seems incredible that the same saxist cut the straight-ahead, jazz-pure Renaissance album.
