Andy Summers w/ Beato

[lammie200]

I really got into his work after The Police. Saw him play a few times. Good stuff. Side note: I used to have a friend that worked on the design of his LA home many years ago.

[Oscar67]

Just watched it. He started out like grumpy cat but then warmed to the occasion. Great player. I owe a lot to him.

[Doctor Jeff]

Cool--will have to give it a proper listen when I've got a spare 2 hours...

He is a very creative guitarist who made full use of the tools of the trade. I particularly enjoyed his work with Robert Fripp, and if I had had the money (being a poor college student) I would've gotten a guitar synth right then and there.

He was almost a decade older than Sting and Stewart, so rather an odd choice for a bandmate. He was 35 when they started playing together, which is ANCIENT for a rock guitarist, particularly one with punk pretentions.

Interesting trivia--the Police already had a guitarist when they met Andy and invited him to join the band. They played as a 4-piece briefly, and almost recorded some stuff with John Cale producing before they let Henry Padovani go.

Edit: he talks about the Cale incident about 1/3 of the way in. Cale had a good rep as a producer at that time, but showed up for their session drunk, and was summarily fired.

[lammie200]

He talks about that stuff in the interview except for post-Police stuff for the most part. I think that Beato should do another interview with him just to talk about his post-Police career, but Beato might not be as interested in that stuff - IDK. I would imagine that Fripp is on Beato's short list for interviewing.

I thought about his age a while ago. I think by the time the Police was formed he not only had the chops to help them reach the level that they did, but he also had ways of presenting them that the others received them well enough to let them happen. He describes in the interview that vetoing ideas wasn't very prevalent. It does seem like he took a very mature approach to his work in that band. At least much more so than the way the contemporary bands worked.

He also has a good biography that is worth reading IMHO. I read it a few years back. Can't even recall the title now but I know that I enjoyed it.

[lammie200]

Cool--will have to give it a proper listen when I've got a spare 2 hours...

He is a very creative guitarist who made full use of the tools of the trade. I particularly enjoyed his work with Robert Fripp, and if I had had the money (being a poor college student) I would've gotten a guitar synth right then and there.

He was almost a decade older than Sting and Stewart, so rather an odd choice for a bandmate. He was 35 when they started playing together, which is ANCIENT for a rock guitarist, particularly one with punk pretentions.

Interesting trivia--the Police already had a guitarist when they met Andy and invited him to join the band. They played as a 4-piece briefly, and almost recorded some stuff with John Cale producing before they let Henry Padovani go.

Edit: he talks about the Cale incident about 1/3 of the way in. Cale had a good rep as a producer at that time, but showed up for their session drunk, and was summarily fired.

Here is a video with both Summers and Padovani playing as The Police. The audio doesn’t match the video very well, but I can definitely see how Summers would change the trajectory.

[Bach5G]

He talks about that stuff in the interview except for post-Police stuff for the most part. I think that Beato should do another interview with him just to talk about his post-Police career, but Beato might not be as interested in that stuff - IDK. I would imagine that Fripp is on Beato's short list for interviewing.

I thought about his age a while ago. I think by the time the Police was formed he not only had the chops to help them reach the level that they did, but he also had ways of presenting them that the others received them well enough to let them happen. He describes in the interview that vetoing ideas wasn't very prevalent. It does seem like he took a very mature approach to his work in that band. At least much more so than the way the contemporary bands worked.

He also has a good biography that is worth reading IMHO. I read it a few years back. Can't even recall the title now but I know that I enjoyed it.

One Train Later?

[lammie200]

One Train Later?

Yeah, that was it. I guess that he published another book of short stories. Probably worth reading as well.

[dot75]

Decent interview but only really covers thr Police stuff for obvious reasons....

I heard him live with Kevin Coyne in the mid '70's, always had his own voice -

This is from his album of Monk tunes,

Dave Carpenter on bass, Peter Erskine on drums, Hank Roberts on cello, Joey DeFrancesco on the hammond B-3 organ, Steve Tavaglione on soprano & tenor
ave Carpenter on bass, Peter Erskine on drums, Hank Roberts on cello, Joey DeFrancesco on the hammond B-3 organ, Steve Tavaglione on soprano & tenor saxophon Dave Carpenter on bass, Peter Erskine on drums, Hank Roberts on cello, Joey DeFrancesco on the hammond B-3 organ, Steve Tavaglione on soprano & tenor saxophones Dave

[Doctor Jeff]

Here is a video with both Summers and Padovani playing as The Police. The audio doesn’t match the video very well, but I can definitely see how Summers would change the trajectory.

Interesting!

The audio quality is pretty poor, but from what I can tell Henry Padovani kind of sounds like Steve Hunter. Maybe his chops were limited at the time, but I could see the possibility of a Reed/Morrison or Hunter/Wagner thing if they had kept on.

In retrospect it worked out OK for The Police. I think Henry has even had a decent career in music afterward, though not quite “Beatles of the 80’s” level.

Not to go off on too far a tangent, but I did a bit of an extended Sting listening session the other day. His songcraft is impeccable. Great jazz-inflected melodies, and very clever lyrics. I like his singing a lot better when he’s not screeching at the top of his vocal range. One of our more underrated singer/songwriters. And his bass playing on those records is top notch too.

Around 1977 or so I was reviewing records for the high school newspaper and contacted record companies to send me samples. One of them was No Wave, with an early version of Roxanne and a song by Klark Kent, AKA Stewart Copeland. There were also songs by The Fabulous Shrinking Dickies, The Stranglers, and the UK Squeeze. Still have it, on translucent blue vinyl.

I never saw The Police back in the day though. They were a bit pop for my tastes at the time, and very popular, so tickets were hard to come by. I did have (very good and very expensive) tickets to see Sting with Peter Gabriel in Denver about 6 years ago, but had to cancel last minute because of a family medical issue. I really regret not going to that show.

[supersoul]

I learned a lot from studying Andy Summers guitar parts. Those stacked 5ths but also his restraint, he was never gratuitous. Around 1 hour and 26 minutes he talks about how music all comes down to phrasing and time, how do you fill time.

His autobiography is well written; I think better than most rock autobiographies. He's a good writer. I was kinda surprised, but then not really because all three Police seem like really intelligent and interesting guys.

[rpjazzguitar]

I read that book and also recommend it.

Summers is a brilliant guitarist and a schooled musician with background in jazz, r&b, pop and classical guitar.

There aren't many guitarists who could carry major rock shows with guitar trio and vocal. His parts were so well-crafted that there was never a shortage of sound. The band never sounded thin. He did it with a combination of jazzy harmony, great guitar sound and, hopefully not overlooked, incredible time-feel.

Good interview. Congrats to both Summers and Beato.

[pawlowski6132]

For those that watched the whole thing, something struck me as odd.

It seemed like he name dropped a TON. He seemed to try to be associating himself and/or his playing with some real Jazz (guitar and others) heavy weights. Mostly citing them as influences or inferring that his style was akin or on par with these cats. If I'm right, I wonder if he was trying to connect with what he perceived to be Rick's audience??

I like his style but I don't find it similar or derivative of those aforementioned in the video at all.

To be blunt, I don't think he has the chops or the sensibilities to play anywhere close to these guys if his life depended on it.

jrp

[Christian Miller]

Great pop/rock guitarist, one of my favourites with a genius for crafting guitar parts.

There were a few of them about… Alan Murphy is another.

I couldn’t get through his autobiography tbh, but it was well written.

I don’t think I’ve ever warmed to him in interviews (or any of the other members of Police for that matter) but maybe I’ll watch the interview. Beato managed to bring something out of Sting… he can connect with the muso nerd in the rock stars.

I respect them all as musicians enormously and they soundtracked my early childhood.

[Navdeep_Singh]

For those that watched the whole thing, something struck me as odd.

It seemed like he name dropped a TON. He seemed to try to be associating himself and/or his playing with some real Jazz (guitar and others) heavy weights. Mostly citing them as influences or inferring that his style was akin or on par with these cats. If I'm right, I wonder if he was trying to connect with what he perceived to be Rick's audience??

I like his style but I don't find it similar or derivative of those aforementioned in the video at all.

To be blunt, I don't think he has the chops or the sensibilities to play anywhere close to these guys if his life depended on it.

jrp

He came off as confident and a serious jazz head. He said he initially thought Every Breath You take was a throwaway song, but then said, “hey, what do I know, I’m into Monk!”. Then he demonstrated his guitar parts over the chords, which basically made the song as good as it was. Good interview. I took some notes of his best quotes:

Andy Summers, on being a serious musician masquerading as ‘fake punk band’, Lenny Breau, Robert Fripp:


“Without being mean it was the punk scene in London and Henri (the original guitarist of the Police) was covering that. I was at another level. I don’t mean to sound big-headed at all there. But I had been playing for a while, went to (music) college in California and had a lot of chops. And Sting was a deep musician. He’s got a lot of stuff, he had all the things. We really connected. We both played rock, rhythm and blues, were into jazz, classical music. it was very parallel, our musical profiles. We were into Bach, into Villa-Lobos. The day came we had to own up. ‘Sorry mate”( to the original guitarist of the Police). We really weren’t a punk band. We were ‘fake punk’. You had to be really hardcore, playing more than three chords was really a no-no. And they made a big thing about it. We were stillborn in the middle of this. We couldn’t get a gig. What saved the Police was, though the manager, got a gig at CBGBs in New York. We got a little three week tour, and we only had six songs. We just let it fly, lots of improvisation, had to stretch it out, because we only had six songs. Outside it was all filth, thievery and dirt. It was the Bowery. It was fantastic. Then a DJ in Boston started to play ‘Roxanne” all the time.


(Roxanne started off as a Bossa Nova). “We were hammering away, trying to be ‘punk’. I said, ‘what about that bossa-nova thing you have, ‘Roxanne’?’ Really, Sting said, “it’s not for us”. It was Stewart who pushed into the rock thing.


On being a ‘fake reggae band’:


“The reggae was great for me, because I could use the Echoplex and these strange chords I was always playing-nothing standard ever-and it would sing through that space, before the next bass note came, and Stewart was tapping on the high-hat. Theoretically, musically, it worked. And I grabbed that space and filled it up with my style of playing.”


“Why would you ever play a barre chord? That’s the dumbest chord or all. C’mon man. That’s for three year olds. We don’t play barre chords. We play two notes.. I jest. Slightly.”


“I have no idea where Stewart’s drumming came from. But I think it came from Count Basie. His father was a big band addict. Stewart decided he wanted to focus on the high-hat. Which is very good for me because it cuts right between the bass and the guitar, it’s in the middle zone. Veery clear and quite assertive.”


(On Regatta de Blanc and Lenny Breau): “I started to do all those Lenny Breau things. It was unsual because I didn’t do the obvious, standard blues solo. I did what I call ‘Lenny Breau harmonics’. I had a couple of lessons with Lenny Breau, the world’s greatest guitarist. You know Lenny Breau? incredible! No other rock guitarist was doing it, and I put it in the middle of ‘Can’t Stand Losing You, this clarity, shimmering thing. Lenny Breau showed me how to do it. I went to Nashville. I called the operator at the hotel, and asked if she could put me though to Mr. Breau. ‘Hi, I wonder if I can get a guitar lesson’ Lenny said, ‘it’s expensive, forty-five dollars!’. He turned up a half later, with a little amp and his guitar. We got on really well, the greatest guitarist of all time. He should have gotten more (attention), because he really outplay anybody we can think of.”


On the idea of Bartok string quartets for guitar: “I wanted to do it with Robert Fripp. But I don’t think he was up to it”.

[Bach5G]

Summers also put out a CD of Mingus’ music. I seem to recall him recording Peggy's Blue Skylight.

I didn’t see any Bartok on Andy’s album with Fripp, Bewitched.