Photo Credit: Larson Sutton
On Thursday night, Andy Summers brought The Cracked Lens + A Missing String tour to Newport’s JPT Film and Event Center for an intimate, two-hour performance of music and storytelling. For Summers, this evening’s visit to the Jane Pickens Theater, a vintage Rhode Island movie palace, prompted thoughts of his first love–jazz–as The Police guitarist, immediately and often, professed his affection for the film, Jazz on a Summer’s Day, shot at the 1958 famed Newport Jazz Festival. Resplendent in a purple suit and black T-shirt, Summers played nearly a dozen songs on electric guitar–on this night, a splashing yellow model from Taylor, just delivered–backed by pre-recorded tracks, while an array of photos he’s taken over his career appeared onscreen behind him.
Musically, Summers ran the gamut of his influences and achievements, varying from angular and progressive jazz originals, including “Metal Dog,” to the Thelonious Monk standard, “’Round Midnight.” As anticipated, Summers also dipped back to the “old days” for some slightly reworked nods to The Police, on classics “Tea in the Sahara,” “Roxanne,” “Spirits in the Material World,” “Bring on the Night,” and an encore of “Message in a Bottle.” The stories flowed, as well, augmented by photographic evidence, with Summers’ quite humorous recollections of a mushroom omelet ‘trip’ in Bali with the late John Belushi, a sleeping pill mishap in South America, and a near international incident between the Police man and actual Argentinian police.
The current U.S. tour continues through mid-June, then resumes in the fall. Additionally, on June 21, Summers will release a new solo EP, Vertiginous Canyons, as a companion piece to his 2023 book of photography, A Series of Glances. For tour dates and info, visit andysummers.com.
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