| In All This Time Sting performs in Italy in front of a select, sympathetic audience drawn from his fan club. As often in recent years, he revisits much old material, often radically recasting it. Such classics as "Roxanne" and "Don't Stand So Close To Me", originally notable for their energy and attack, have mellowed with age, acquiring some new chords, stripped down instrumentation and a rhapsodic, lyrical character. Some may miss the old vitality, but elsewhere Sting hits harder with a loose-limbed Afro-Cuban reading of "Set Them Free", a slamming "Every Breath You Take" and the shuffling boogie of "Brand New Day". As ever, Sting's soft spot for jazz, always evident in the sophistication of his writing, is given flesh in his top-drawer sidemen, among them Christian McBride, Chris Botti and England's own Jason Rebello. Jazz also leads him to turn "Roxanne" into a low-down medium swinger with a beautifully gravelly and sadly short-lived trombone solo from Clark Gayton. There are times when Sting's voice is perhaps over-stretched (when for example he affects an Armstrong-like growl in "Moon Over Bourbon Street") and there's a sense of tokenism in the too-brief glimpses of his talented sidemen, but the delighted audience on this balmy Tuscan evening show no sign of dissent. --Mark Gilbert |
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