Sting - Bring on the Night

A documentary about Sting assembling his first band after the Police. He has just left one of the best-known groups in the world and is trying something new on his own. The musicians he picks come from jazz rather than rock: Branford Marsalis on saxophone, Kenny Kirkland on keyboards, Darryl Jones on bass and Omar Hakim on drums. The documentary follows the rehearsal period at a chateau outside Paris and the first concert that comes out of it. What is on screen is not a polished stage but the work itself: the same passage tried over and over, arguments about arrangement, the search for a fit between players. Its most human passage happens during rehearsals: Sting's son is born in this period and the camera records that too. Michael Apted directed; he was continuing the Seven Up documentary series in the same years, and the observational stance of that series is visible here. A tight record for anyone who likes Sting, jazz and music documentary. For a viewer expecting a concert film, this looks mostly at the preparation; the stage footage is only one part of it.