Bass Player: Sting

Known primarily for his role as frontman for post-Punk icons The Police, it is not widely known that, prior to his forming the band, Gordon Sumner was a double bass playing Jazzer. When The Police started to flounder, Sting put together a band featuring a selection of US Jazz players including Branford Marsalis (Jazz Messengers, Wynton Marsalis), Kenny Kirkland (Wynton Marsalis), drummer Omar Hakim (Weather Report, Madonna) and electric bass player, Darryl Jones (Miles Davis, John Scofield, The Rolling Stones). On this track, however, it is the old Jazzer who comes out to play and Sting does the bass part himself.

What we didn’t know until researching for this post was that the tune was inspired by Anne Rice’s gothic noir novel, ‘Interview With The Vampire’ which is partially set in the French Quarter of New Orleans. The transcription is one of the easiest reads on the BBB website and is made up almost entirely of minims/half notes. Most student readers could nail this one very soon after starting to learn.