Police’s Summers Reveals His Sweeping, Lush Style

Andy Summers is best known as the guitarist with the popular rock group the Police. But his recent outings have taken him far closer to the arena of jazz.

His “Green Chimneys” CD was dedicated to the music of Thelonious Monk. A previous album, “Strings of Desire,” included such classics as “Night in Tunisia,” “Django” and “Stolen Moments.” And his just-released recording, “Peggy’s Blue Skylight,” takes on the compositions of Charles Mingus.

Tuesday night at the Jazz Bakery, Summers divided his program between Mingus and Monk pieces, tossing in a pair of his own, and adding Mongo Santamaria’s “Afro Blue” for good measure. His instrumentation in this case--his guitar, Dave Carpenter’s bass and Joel Taylor’s drums--was considerably more spare than the ensembles on the albums. The “Peggy’s Blue Skylight” CD, for example, also features the Kronos Quartet, vocalist Q-Tip, the Jazz Passengers, Deborah Harry, Randy Brecker and others.

Summers, however, professes to enjoy what he describes as the “open space” of a guitar trio format, and he made considerable use of it in his program. His style, which is solidly within the soundscape inhabited by players such as Pat Metheny, John Scofield and John Abercrombie, is based upon a large, sweeping tone and evenly articulated fast-note runs.

In his more affecting passages--the theme statement to Mingus’ classic “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat,” for example--his lush sound repeatedly discovered the music’s inherent drama. On the rhythmically quirky Monk tune “Evidence,” Summers took a different tack, contrasting the piece’s brisk accents with a driving, busy-fingered solo.

Despite his affection for jazz, however, his tendency to play his notes dead on the beat tended to reduce the feeling of lift and rhythmic anticipation essential to jazz swing. And in that sense, he was most effective in pieces--his own “Easy on the Eyes” and Mingus’ “Tonight at Noon”--in which he remained more firmly within a rock music orbit.

He was especially well supported in that aspect of his playing by Taylor’s busy drum work. But one wonders why Carpenter, a superb jazz soloist, received virtually no solo space at all.

* The Andy Summers Trio at the Jazz Bakery through Sunday. 3233 Helms Ave., Culver City. (310) 271-9039. Tonight through Sunday at 8 and 9:30 p.m. $22.