Andy Summer's Solos with the Police

[timmerman]

Well he did not do that many eh, so we can keep it short

But when he did it, Oh boy, you know what I mean eh?

At the moment I can think of the one on "Driven to Tears" from Zenyatta Mondatta, it really jumps at you with its tone and notechoice.

Andy is someone who treats solos as a compostion in their own right, need to stand out a bit from the song, enhance the song and lift it up to a higher level.

Another one is "Bombs Away" taken from same album, and again it jumps at you and stands out from the rest of the crowd.

Then there is "So Lonely" from the album Outlandos D'amour [Don't you love all those weird album titles?? ], very subtle in its notechoice as the chordsequence is so straightforward, but what he does with the notes is great.

Another one is "Next to You" from same album, this time he really goes for it with an agressive tone. His take on how Punkrockers should handle "playing single notes which deal out the blows"

So far the Police, now the funny thing with Andy is: He can really play, does all kind of styles, but really likes to experiment. However the solos on his own pop-albums [the man does more Jazz these days, but he has a few "pop" albums as well...........] are of a very different kind. Just goes to show that he would really need Sting and Steward to bring out that fire in him.

 

[mshilarious]

Mother! mothermothermothermothermothermothermothermothermother!

I used to have most of the Police albums, but I can't remember the early ones too well anymore. There was a solo on "Invisible Sun", I think.

 

[nkjanssen]

Love the Police. Love Andy's playing. They never should have let him record his own songs though. It was always a pain cutting out the one Andy song on each album when making tapes for the car.

 

[Aaron Cheney]

Love the Police. Love Andy's playing. They never should have let him record his own songs though. It was always a pain cutting out the one Andy song on each album when making tapes for the car.

True dat!

That band is a classic example of the total being greater than the sum of the parts.... just like the Beatles. There was an obvious tension in the band that just made it work. Sting was the gas, with top-notch songwriting and frontman ego. Andy summers was the brakes. His resistance and "anti-songwriting" kept Sting from slipping into the new-age/ jazzy stuff that his solo work has become. And then there was the drumming, which always sounded like Stewart was just about ready to launch himself over his drums and strangle both of them.

I'd say the "highlight" moment for each of them would be:

Copland - Message in a Bottle, one of my all-time fav drum parts.
Sting (the bassist/vocalist) - Walking on the Moon, beautiful in it's simplicity and use of space
Sting (the songwritier) King of Pain, one brilliant metaphor after another
Summers - Walking in Your Footseps, great un-guitar playing with primal noises and grunts the work perfectly with the song...or maybe, Synchronicity Part II, that's a great guitar part as well.

What a great band.

A

 

[cstockdale]

Roughly March or April of 1984 I saw The Police play in Melbourne Australia. It was the final concert of the "Police Picnic" Synchronicity World Tour, and subsequently the last concert they ever played.

I was 15 at the time. Opening acts were:

Kids in The Kitchen
The Sunnyboys
Bryan Adams (yes, that Bryan Adams)
Australian Crawl

I still remember that show clearly. It was awesome.

 

[jfrog]

andy is probably one of the most underrated guitarists out there, probably because he mostly stuck to adding textures and interesting chords but didn't bust out into legendary solos like other guitarists who are considered great.

my $0.02

 

[Mr songwriter]

I like Andy Summers' guitar playing too, though I do remember reading a book about Sting that said that a lot of The Polices' early songs bore a very strong resemblance to certain songs that were written by other members of Stings previous band (Last Exit) I've never heard any of Last Exits' stuff though, so I don't know if there's anything in it.

 

[Incanus]

I love the fact that he played such bizarre and unique solos, and that they weren't on every song, probably just 2 or 3 per record or so. Also they were short and concise. I dig him as a rhythm player as well--'Bring on the Night'. Need I say more?

 

[Garry Sharp]

There are some solo guitar breaks on Invisible Sun. They are beautiful.

 

[timmerman]

Mother! mothermothermothermothermothermothermothermothermother!

I used to have most of the Police albums, but I can't remember the early ones too well anymore. There was a solo on "Invisible Sun", I think.

Mooooooooooooooooooooother Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeze Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh Agggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh don't be angry with me anymore

I know you love that song mshilarious, well I think the song does very well what it is supposed to do, so yes, great, but you should not hear it too much, just as you should not here your own mother say too many things like: "Are you sure you have nothing forgotten?" "Tea will be at 6.00pm if you are not there, no tea so.................." and really it doesn't matter how old you are mothers still seem to hold a grip on their sons, so yes Andy well done with that song!!

 

[timmerman]

Love the Police. Love Andy's playing. They never should have let him record his own songs though. It was always a pain cutting out the one Andy song on each album when making tapes for the car.

You see how different we all are eh? I love Andy's song on Zenyatta Mondatta [cannot think of title right now] It has that great guitarsythn. tone. The overal sound has the same colour as the cover of the album. That is really his tone [or was for a while]....................

 

[timmerman]

True dat!

That band is a classic example of the total being greater than the sum of the parts.... just like the Beatles. There was an obvious tension in the band that just made it work. Sting was the gas, with top-notch songwriting and frontman ego. Andy summers was the brakes. His resistance and "anti-songwriting" kept Sting from slipping into the new-age/ jazzy stuff that his solo work has become. And then there was the drumming, which always sounded like Stewart was just about ready to launch himself over his drums and strangle both of them.

I'd say the "highlight" moment for each of them would be:

Copland - Message in a Bottle, one of my all-time fav drum parts.
Sting (the bassist/vocalist) - Walking on the Moon, beautiful in it's simplicity and use of space
Sting (the songwritier) King of Pain, one brilliant metaphor after another
Summers - Walking in Your Footseps, great un-guitar playing with primal noises and grunts the work perfectly with the song...or maybe, Synchronicity Part II, that's a great guitar part as well.

What a great band.

A

Can I add Steward's drumming on "Walking on the Moon" to that? Absolutely beautiful, and they knew how to milk those endings eh the thing just does not seem to want to stop

 

[timmerman]

Roughly March or April of 1984 I saw The Police play in Melbourne Australia. It was the final concert of the "Police Picnic" Synchronicity World Tour, and subsequently the last concert they ever played.

I was 15 at the time. Opening acts were:

Kids in The Kitchen
The Sunnyboys
Bryan Adams (yes, that Bryan Adams)
Australian Crawl

I still remember that show clearly. It was awesome.

They also had their moments when it sucked. Our drummer brought a bootleg tape in, and it must have been 1984, it was a recording of a concert they did in the Netherlands sometime in 1982 or 1983. Sure the quality was dodgy, but the tempos were sooooo much faster, with the result that some of the finer moments in the guitarparts were lost. Also Stings singing was at times debatable.

Can remember how we all laughed at it at that time, as we used to be like "The Police, heh whow, you can't touch them eh", guess the tape just showed they are only human as well....................

 

[timmerman]

andy is probably one of the most underrated guitarists out there, probably because he mostly stuck to adding textures and interesting chords but didn't bust out into legendary solos like other guitarists who are considered great.

my $0.02

Don't you think that amoung guitarplayers he is very much appreciated? When you look at younger bands and what kind of people they mention as influences, the police is mentioned very often. I think the police was really respected as loved in their day and people still like them.

True Andy may not have a superstatus as a Hendrix or Clapton or Page, think he does not mind as he never really wanted to sound like any of them anyway. You know what? Andy jammed once with Hendrix, and Hendrix was on Bass , now how funny is that, even Andy thinks it is a bit hilarious. He was just hanging out with him at the time when Hendrix was part of the London scene.