STING BRINGS ROCK/JAZZ FUSION TO LIFE

The American Movies Classics channel is running a "Music in the Movies" marathon this weekend and I was very pleasantly surprised by this movie which I'd never seen before. In
fact, I knew nothing about it. The movie was directed by Michael Apted and is far superior to most of the "concert" movies that I've seen.

Sting was known as a pop musician (aka "rock") before this movie was made. However, his music with The Police always had a jazz oriented sound to it. He composed beautiful,
intricate songs with beautiful, intricate, meaningful lyrics which often told a story.

At the time this movie was filmed (1985), Sting had formed a rock-jazz band consisting of one white Englishman (Sting) and several black American musicians. The most famous
musician in the group was Branford Marsalis, the great sax player of the fabulous Marsalis family. Also in the group were: Kenny Kirkland, pianist; Omar Hakim, drummer; Darryl
Jones, electric bass; and Dolette McDonald and Janice Pendarvis, background singers. All of these people are excellent musicians.

What made this movie better than the average concert film is how Apted pieced the rehearsals, interviews, and the actual concert together. We get to see the creative process
from the birth of the song through its rehearsal and finally its onstage performance. The movie was filmed by Ralf Bode who did a masterful job of providing the excitement which led up to the Paris concert.

Sting was taking a huge risk in moving from the pure pop/rock genre to the jazz/rock venue. Or so it would seem. As I stated earlier, his music was always tinged with blues or jazz highlights. Nevertheless, he had never performed with such a pure jazz group of musicians. As he explains in one interview snippet, half of the songs performed in the concert were songs that his audience already knew. The other half were totally new material and even the half that were "old" material were totally re-arranged to fit the jazz motif.

At the opening of the film we see the musicians working on various songs. They are getting to know the music and each other. It was fascinating to me to see how this group of
strangers could work so well together. Throughout this process, Apted would cut away to small interviews with each performer. Marsalis was the most outspoken, at one point saying that being around "stars" (Sting excluded) made him want to throw up. "Stardom" simply wasn't his "thing". Each musician had a slightly different take on the progress of the group as a band.

Throughout the movie, we also see Trudie Styler, Sting's significant other, go through the last few days of being pregnant with their second child. She does manage to have the baby after the concert and the birth is one of the beautiful moments of the movie. The filming of the birth is very tastefully done and is quite emotional.

While the entire movie is excellent, the concert itself is amazing. Complete with the usual lighting and stage designs of a rock concert, the music is certainly a rocking variety of jazz. Each musician is highlighted at various times but the standouts to me were Marsalis and Hakim. In fact, Hakim's incredible drumming sent the Paris fans into a frenzy. He is not only a tremendous drummer, he's also a great showman.

Branford on the other hand plays his sax solos in an almost introverted fashion. He is so accomplished as a sax player, that he needs no histrionics to enhance his performance.

I would have liked to have seen the two ladies sing a song by themselves as they both have tremendous voices but we don't hear them in concert as well as we do in the rehearsals.

If you are a jazz fan or a rock fan that likes Sting's type of music, this is an excellent film for you. Even if you aren't a fan of those genres of music, it's still an excellent film to see how a concert is put together. I would give this movie a 4 and 1/2 rating but I'll bump that up to 5 STARS because it is so enjoyable.

The music from this movie can be heard on Sting's "The Dream of Blue Turtles" album.