Montreux Jazz Festival: Sting @ Auditorium Stravinsky July 16.

(Review by Ron Ainsborough - the first of a series of belated reviews of a festival that is probably only 40% jazz these days).

I know this concert is not Jazz but we do have a link with Jazz, in that Lance, when I saw him a while back asked me to give his regards to Sting (a former Newcastle Big Band bass player). Well unfortunately, Lance, he was a little bit busy singing that night and I missed having a word with him. drat!

Back to the review.

Sting’s drummer was non other than Vinnie Colaiuta  (LA based I believe!) I first came across him on the Jeff Beck at Ronnie Scott's DVD, he is a fantastic powerhouse drummer and I think called upon by a number of top musicians. A Bonus before we started.

Sting sang every top seller he ever recorded with the most polished and professional performance you are ever likely to see. He obviously had a great band of musicians around him including the aforementioned drummer. So engrossed with his music, like many jazz performers, he does not talk to his audience very much at all, but instead lets the superb music do the talking. The set lasted for 2.5 hours including FOUR encores which really says it all. A non jazz night to remember big time! Actually he did play one instrumental number which was pure jazz featuring solos by every band member which was great like the rest of his wonderful performance.

As this concert was standing room only for about 3.50 hours a lot of people (including my wife and myself) in the 'Stravinsky Hall' used the 45minute opening set by Sadie and the Hotheads to sit and rest on the floor before the main event.

Sadie and the Hotheads is a band lead by the actress Elizabeth McGoverns playing nice music for those that like that kind of thing.

Ron Ainsborough.