MUSIC HISTORY: Andy Summers

Andy Summers has been recording some of the more groundbreaking work in jazz or rock music ever since the demise of The Police, the band with which Summers made his name. His two experimental efforts with Robert Fripp -- 1982’s I Advanced Masked and 1984’s Bewitched -- notwithstanding, Summers’ solo career began on record in 1987 with the release of XYZ, a mature, pop-rock record that found Summers in the vocalist’s slot for the first time and attempting to pick up where his work in the Police had left off. It showed off his range and dedication to musical (as well as lyrical) substance -- “Scary Voices” could and should have been a hit single -- but was largely ignored and overlooked by an industry that was attempting to find it's artistic and commercial bearings after the shakeup of the punk revolution and its later incarnation, new wave. The more astute fans of The Police knew that there was much promise with the band’s diminutive guitarist, and Summers was clearly trying to place himself within a proper and workable context. After years of exploring new wave, funk, and reggae with Sting and Stewart Copeland, as well as stints previous with the somewhat eccentric Kevin Ayers, Kevin Coyne, and even the last gasp of Eric Burdon's "new" Animals, Summers was finally in a position to define and realize his own place in the hierarchy of music.

Behind this “rock” guitarist's career is a notable and seriously talented musician who spent years in California studying classical guitar, and prior still to that absorbing the nuances of jazz from as far back as his teen years. In an early interview during his years with The Police, Summers was asked to note his influences, and his response was a list of jazz players not normally mentioned by rock guitarists: Barney Kessel, John Abercrombie, Django Rheinhardt, Wes Montgomery, Kenny Burrell. In the liner notes for his 1993 effort Invisible Threads, Summers explained the artistic double-life he was leading:

“Soon I dyed my hair bright orange and announced that I was in The Police. This led to considerable confusion, I lost a lot of friends, and the few remaining said that it was over for me - I had lost my marbles. Meanwhile I was working out a really cool version of ‘Goodbye Pork Pie Hat’ with John (Etheridge), on acoustic guitar. John went to Europe with The Soft Machine, and I went to the east coast of America to play in punk clubs. I left the stage at C.B.G.B.'s and made it back to London on a 6 a.m. flight from New York, to put on a white hospital robe and witness the birth of my daughter. I met John on Hampstead Heath and we worked out a nice acoustic version of ‘'Round Midnight.’ It rained. We sat under a tree and discussed the health benefits of negative ions. It's been going on like this for years.”

Simply because Summers’ first success was with The Police, he is generally and unfairly regarded as another rock player out of his depth in the waters of jazz. Music (and the film industry for that matter) is an industry wherein how you enter the business has a lot to do with where you go. There are few precious instances where artists have been able to move beyond their initial impression. It's simply a double standard that has no regard for art, the artistic process, creativity, or the facts regarding the business itself. In the end, at least in terms of creative expression, The Police were a (albeit brilliant) diversion.

And what does all this mean? It means important and innovative music has been recorded by Summers since the start of his solo journey, and alarmingly few are hearing it, playing it, and giving it the attention it deserves. Both the industry and the public are guilty of reducing the limits of acceptability in regards to artists, which is disappointing, because so few artists are then able to present how multi-faceted they are, Summers chief among them. (By the same token this dogma tends to filter out the one-dimensional; such are the vicissitudes of art and commerce.)

Rock’s climate has changed considerably since the dissolution of the Police, and not for the better. Few if any veteran bands have matched their earlier work with reunion tours or albums. While Sting and Summers have worked together on their respective albums, they have thankfully avoided the tainted enticement of reunion. Both Summers and Sting are more interested in what they are doing now, which artistically is the best route for both of them. It’s a plus there hasn't been any Police reunion -- at least not in a recording or touring sense -- as aside from Steely Dan, no reunion has ever really been a good idea. The fruits of said labor tend to rot before ever coming to fruition. And while Sting has always received the most press and attention, it is Summers who has done the most innovative, groundbreaking work.

Within a rock context, fans of the Police may be aware of Summers work only because the most loyal (or obsessive) buy everything any given band member puts out for purposes of completion. Beyond that, no one has opportunity to hear Summers work through the normal channels. Summers has virtually forged a new hybrid between rock and jazz without the vacuousness of fusion, but rock radio won't play his music because of its excessively jazzy connotations, and the serious jazz stations -- and critics for that matter -- tend to dismiss his work as a result of its rock elements. What this results in is a situation wherein a musical legend makes waves in the stagnating jazz pond, but neither jazz nor rock fans ever get to see -- or rather, hear -- the splash. Regardless, Summers has forged a tasteful, eloquent approach to the amalgamation of jazz and rock.

Many facets of the jazz scene (including fans and critics alike) have been guilty of an elitist and exclusionary attitude in regards to rock's influence, and it's players. While it is indisputable that the average jazz musician is usually a more studied player than your average rock musician, setting limitations on where jazz can derive it's inspiration and direction from is to limit the inherent scope of creativity itself. Many took issue with Miles Davis with the release Bitches Brew in 1969, arguing that it wasn't jazz. The same argument was made when bebop first developed and began to slip into the playing of various sidemen in the bands of Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, and Lionel Hampton. Wynton Marsalis -- as self-designated arbiter of jazz -- likes to dictate what is and isn't jazz all without a strain of innovation to his own body of work. Somehow it seems one should at least have that notch of accomplishment on their belt before self-righteously declaring the value of the work of others.

What was really being forged with fusion was applying the jazz aesthetic to a more rock-oriented context. While starting off pregnant with promise in 1969 with Miles Davis’ In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew, fusion largely peaked with the first efforts of John McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra and Tony Williams’ Lifetime (in 1971 and 1972 respectively). Progressive-thinking rock artists like Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Stephen Stills and David Crosby took cues from this synthesis and applied them to their own work, often with groundbreaking results. Summers has done the same, and in a truly unique and refined fashion. His work is sophisticated, contemporary music, and he draws his influences from jazz as well as rock, creating music that is fresh and forward-looking. He has in many ways reinvented the jazz-rock aesthetic, often with sparkling results.

Beginning with The Golden Wire (1989), Summers really began hitting the mark with his own vision, and he was poised on the brink of an artistic breakthrough. After experimenting with what amounted to textural, Eno-esque, instrumental solo guitar music on 1988’s Mysterious Barricades, The tracks on The Golden Wire were similarly atmospheric -- as with all his work, Summers soundscape is always refreshingly unmistakable -- with a steady compositional foundation, great bass work, and stinging, inspired solos. But Summers is not in the category of guitar hounds whose basis for recorded work is to manufacture great rhythm tracks as enticing backdrops for guitar solos. His emphasis is first and foremost on composition, inventive chord structure, and genuine improvisational expression – cornerstones of the jazz aesthetic. The Golden Wire built on how Summers approached music with The Police, but he expanded his context and showed the real breadth of his expression. Works varied from meditative, ethereal mood pieces (“A Thousand Stones”), world music influences (“Piya Tose”), to sinewy blues (“Blues for Snake”). Still others (“Vigango”) contained the type of atmospherically bristling, distorted, careening lead guitar solos that were part of what made Summers famous in the first place.

Charming Snakes (1990) refined and expanded Summers’ approach still further, and showed him to be completely on target. What’s at work here is a singular sense of refinement that doesn’t lose sight of its rougher edges. Summers mixes a unique mélange of jazz, rock, blues, classical and new-age sensibilities into a perfect balance, and comes out with an out-of-context hybrid that’s refreshing. Its subtlety is what makes it defy true categorization, right down to Summers’ approach to lead playing: he prefers biting, atmospheric phrases to the grandstanding of dexterous solos (all the while being capable of both, in the best possible way). With Charming Snakes, Summers raised the stakes.

The actual sonics of the Andy Summers catalog are nothing short of tremendous; the sound is always balanced with a well-defined soundstage, deep bass, clear spatial separation, and pristine highs. Any audiophile would love the dynamic range on display on Summers’ recordings, and Charming Snakes in particular is a model of audiophile sound: the crispness of Chad Wackerman’s first drum fill on “Mexico 1920” instantly catches your attention, which is then followed in succession by the tight, driving bass, crisp, warm piano chords, and Summers’ clear yet slightly distorted leads. Also joining Summers On Charming Snakes is ex-Miles Davis sideman Bill Evans on soprano saxophone, who lends a series of deft, exciting solos to various tracks; Sting, who’s simple but effective bass notes grace the title track; and Herbie Hancock, who supplies a stunning and graceful piano intro to “Big Thing,” the album’s tour-de-force. “Monk Gets Ripped” snaps smoothly from light funk to a jazzy lilt before being blown wide open by a staggering guitar solo. “Mickey Goes To Africa” begins with a steady, repeated drum figure; the song’s bridge builds like a rising flood as Summer’s plays a smoldering slide solo that lingers like a threatening storm. It’s everything that was ever right about jazz-rock sophistication, and unlike anything else. No one shifts moods and atmospheres like Andy Summers.

With World Gone Strange (1991) Summers’ skated more closely to the marketing moniker of “smooth jazz,” but to describe the album solely in that way would be a disservice. For starters, Summers’ compositions are far too edgy for the aesthetics of such egregious pop-jazz confections. Essentially Summers appeared to be shooting for a lighter, more upbeat feel on the album as a whole, with a bit too much slickness for the work’s own good. Still, Summers was still able to pull off moody numbers like “Blues for Richard” and the world music energy of the title track.

1993 brought Andy into his first recorded acoustic incursion -- in collaboration with John Etheridge -- with Invisible Threads, a duo work of sublime flair and imagination. There’s an inherent freshness to this music, a natural breeziness that belies the conviction of its players. A cunning mixture of playfulness and serious interpretation, Invisible Threads showed how far Summers had come, and could still go.

Synaesthesia (1995) is Summers’ most eclectic and experimental recording thus far. Filled with dissonance and opposing rhythms and harmonies, it was the most advanced (in terms of conception), atonal, and multilayered of Summers’ works. From tracks teeming with the insistent drumming of Ginger Baker, the twisted strings of the Kronos Quartet, on to Andy’s first recorded forays into keyboard composition, Synaesthesia was like no other record in the Summers canon. With “Monk Hangs Ten,” Summers managed to piece together a work that appeared to be in two keys simultaneously. It was overall, a churning eclectic work, with an overall shade of darkness and flashes of light, and Summers’ use of alternate chord forms to the fore.

By the time of The Last Dance of Mr. X (1997), Andy Summers was truly in a realm of his own. Clearly he had found a perfect balance between rock and jazz that averted fusion’s more vacuous elements. Only Steely Dan came as close to a truly perfect union of jazz and rock. Nearly every track neatly balanced rock’s rhythmic drive and energy while maintaining jazz’s penchant for subtlety and harmonic sophistication. All of the most credible jazz aesthetics were in place, and Summers showed his flair for jazz soloing and his use of alternate chords via an array of impressive original compositions which stood neck and neck with Horace Silver's "Lonely Woman," Wayne Shorter's "Footprints," and Mongo Santarmaria's "Afro Blue.”

Unoriginal and overdone cover choices, you say? At first glance, perhaps. But at first listen, it’s clear that Summers is able to draw out elements overlooked by previous explorations of the same material by others. He brings a fresh perspective that never dishonors or ignores the essential emotional and musical oeuvre of the compositions themselves, all while weaving his own sense of the tunes through the melody and his own engaging solos - flavored with Andy’s tasteful mix of post-minimalist jazz exotica. Rarely are such jazz war-horses given the chance to run free into new territory. Andy’s take on “Lonely Woman” may be the definitive version redefined.

Opting for interpreting the works of one of his heroes in lieu of original material, Summers showed real flair and invention on Green Chimneys: The Music of Thelonious Monk (1999). Normally an album of covers is either a stopgap measure to mark time, or simply a misstep -- I for one would rather hear an average song that any given artist wrote themselves, than to hear them play something written by someone else entirely -- but the goal here was reinvention through reinterpretation: jazz through Summers’ jazz-rock prism. The most satisfying of tracks is “Green Chimneys”: it’s the most straightforwardly jazzy, the most direct. It simply shows Summers and his conception in its best light: understated, subdued, earthy, probing contemporary jazz, with Summers’ terse solo(s) as an added bonus.

(An interesting footnote: one notable jazz guitarist I encountered in New York at Birdland remained unconvinced that Green Chimneys was a worthy effort; his claim was that Summers didn’t have a firm grasp of the jazz vocabulary, among other issues; suffice it to say the air of reactionary neo-classicism still permeates the clouded synapses of even the most celebrated players – particularly those who spend their careers regurgitating the efforts and concepts of Wes Montgomery and George Benson.)

Summers has gone on record commenting about the difficulty in finding musicians who can translate what he's looking for musically, instead of filling the music with personalized licks, riffs, and phrases from the lexicon of musical posturing which is sometimes the province of session musicians. He doesn't name names, but he's apparently tried out top-notch players in the past and found that they didn't work out due to the aforementioned issues. But somehow Summers has managed to get exactly what the tunes are looking for in terms of players and their correlating styles on each successive album, including Green Chimneys.

Summers clearly has an honest connection to Monk's music. As subject for pure speculation, one gets the impression that Monk would have enjoyed Andy's new twists and turns to the compositions, since he uncannily pulls the music in directions it had ingrained elements of. As always, Summers projects an effortless swing, and the depth of Monk’s influence and musical humor permeates every phrase.

While his takes on Monk and Mingus resulted in some refreshingly contemporary and engaging music, the aesthetics Summers has in place for his approach to music are interesting enough to carry any work he sees fit to record. One could see him doing brilliantly with something like “Juarez After Dark” -- from Barney Kessel's 1981 album Jellybeans -- as it's an atmospheric, bluesy number of flair and sophistication; truly ideal material if he was looking for a song to cover. But in the end, it is his original material that is going to show what Summers is still capable of, and how he does with it seems to be one of the few interesting things left to look forward to in jazz or rock these days.

Thus Summers next work is an important one. After two albums of interpreting the works of others -- as well as his other diverse forays -- the question remains whether he could still move himself forward musically with something new to say in the post 20th century musical landscape. Summers needs to show that his new compositions are relevant, edgy, and written with a sense of purpose.

The result, Earth + Sky, released at the end of 2003, may be his finest effort. It simultaneously summarizes all that Summers has done before -- without a trace of retread no less -- and takes its listener(s) down some unexpected avenues. Again the emphasis is on composition and melodic invention, but the various threads that make up the Summers sound are more integrated, more deeply woven. Summers unifies his acoustic and electric guitar work on Earth + Sky seamlessly; tracks that have acoustic guitar intros sound as if they could easily carry on as solo acoustic pieces, but Summers then slips in subtle drums and gentle bass along with his cleanly distorted Gibson 335 sound. His lead lines are reminiscent of John Scofield, but Summers is somehow even more cohesive, more melodically inventive (to take nothing away from Scofield). Earth + Sky is an advanced, insightful and engaging musical statement that deserves listening – a rewarding amalgamation of jazz and rock if there ever was one.

On this outing Summers has Steely Dan alumni John Beasley (on keyboards) and Vinnie Colaiuta (on drums), as well as Abraham Laboriel on bass. The music on Earth + Sky manages to exist within the same sonic framework as much of the more recent work of Steely Dan, more so on this album than any other in the Summers catalog. This is a notable parallel between Summers and Steely Dan: Summers has essentially taken jazz and added a rock sensibility to it, while Steely Dan co-founder Walter Becker has been quoted as saying that one element of what he and partner Donald Fagen tried to do was use jazz harmonies in what were basically rock songs. Each avoided the vicissitudes of fusion by focusing on composition and arrangements, thus each has explored territory seemingly unvisited by others.

For merely the purpose of illustrating artistic parallels, I’d venture to say that with Earth + Sky, it’s in some ways as though Walter Becker opted to make an instrumental album as a follow-up to his greatly underrated 11 Tracks of Whack (1994); both Becker and Summers play with the same tasteful, linear, occasionally dissonant feel for phrasing, and they have many of the same influences. And while both are responsible for adding what amounts to the lemon juice in their respective musical recipes, both are singularly unique in their own right. Summers has long seemed a good match for the guitar slot on at least one future Steely Dan song, and on “Red Stiletto,” he shows his own flair for dark, steely jazz-funk, complete with Fender Rhodes and Colaiuta’s precise stuttering drum beats.

“Above The World” opens the album with an energetic yet ethereal number, with Beasley’s Fender Rhodes establishing a hook that Summers plays off of with incisive leads, while Vinnie Colaiuta’s drums build a frenetic groove that threatens to careen out of control. It’s an arresting opener, and one that retains many of the defining elements of Andy Summers music while also moving him distinctly forward: clearly Summers’ sense of composition and harmonic invention has grown and become more refined, a direct outgrowth of his previous interpretive takes on the works of Monk and Mingus.

“Now I’m Free” starts as a quiet mood piece with a simple melody and beautiful piano chords. Its loping beat gives way to an assimilated African rhythm, with cascading guitar and sax lines. “Return” melodically recalls the track “James” -- written as a homage to James Taylor -- from the Pat Metheny Group’s Offramp (1982), which to this day stands as that band’s best offering. Summers’ inventive use of alternate chord shapes is again beautifully displayed to great effect on a pristine composition of exquisite grace.

“Earth and Sky” is one of Andy Summers’ most impressive and interesting compositions. Opening with a skating minor-key theme from Andy’s guitar, it then snaps, twists and turns through a series of changing time signatures and rhythms, with Colaiuta’s rim shots and fills bringing Summers’ old Police band-mate Stewart Copeland to mind. Weaving guitar figures set up atmospheric textures as Summers lead guitar lines burn and skitter over the churning music. Its five-and-a-half-minute duration is over in what seems like three minutes, and you’re left with the distinct feeling that you’ve undoubtedly missed something and need to hear it again, particularly Summers’ killer, multi-layered, feedback-laced guitar solo.

“Circus” slopes along with a fusion-like groove and agile acoustic guitar figures before shifting into a bridge with Monkian chord transitions and piping sax accents, with Summers soloing soulfully over the vamp. It’s a tour-de-force, and all Summers would ever need as proof of his importance as one of the greatest guitarists ever to pick-up a six string. His catalog deserves greater consideration and exposure, for it stands as an absorbing body of work.

Summers performed a four-night stand at Birdland in New York City back in October of 2001, playing in a trio setting with the formidable and explosive drummer Dennis Chambers, and the always impressive alumni-of-Miles Davis, Darryl Jones on bass. Opening with Thelonious Monk's "Green Chimneys," Chambers and Jones laid down a moody, vaguely sinister groove that percolated slowly with captivation and swing. As Summers began the lead guitar line, his head tilted back in seemingly hypnotized concentration, and it was clear he was tapping the same pond of inspiration, integrity, and expression visited thousands of times by Miles Davis, Barney Kessel, Sonny Rollins, Steely Dan, Charlie Parker, and many, many others. It's really all from the same pond. And while there have been periods of drought -- particularly now in this ever-elongating period of cultural stagnation -- luckily it hasn’t yet dried up altogether. Andy Summers certainly hasn't either.