STING Is Portland performance a ‘Message in a Bottle?

Sting is coming to the Cumberland County Civic Center. Sting is coming to Maine. “That shows where his career is headed,” said a friend to me. Or words to that effect anyway. Of course the comment was facetious in nature, maybe even a little snide, but it seemed a reasonable observation.

After all, like it or not, it’s a fact that most stars of Sting’s magnitude consider New England done after the curtain comes down on the Boston show.

But does it really show where the venerable Mr. Sumner’s career is headed, in any other than a purely physical sense? I’m not so sure. In fact, Sting’s career has almost constantly confounded those who would seek to look through the glass at its future.

The Sting of today is an odd creature, seemingly existing outside the confines of the music business and he has, during the last decade or so, become possibly more well- known for his charitable works than his music.

When we see him mystifyingly adding his undoubted vocal talents to Puff Daddy’s butchering of The Police standard, “Every Breath You Take,” the trite “I’ll Be Missing You,” we are struck by the image of two men taking time off from their day jobs – Combs is the ubiquitous “businessman,” Sumner clocks in as the world’s irritating conscience. The marriage appears one of convenience, with both coming together only to further raise their profiles, the music a jaunty wedding march.

But it wasn’t always this way for Sting. Those willing to date themselves can provide fond reminiscences of Sting’s most famous band, The Police.

It seems a little odd now, but trust me, The Police were relatively important in their day. Sure, they were no Clash, but still carved a noticeable niche for themselves in Britain’s new-wave wonderland. Picking up on the reggae that many punks listened to when getting home from the Kings Road, The Police molded a popular hybrid white-boy-play-bad sound, stirred in some slightly edgy lyrics, and became huge.

During the early ’80s, few self-respecting record collections were without copies of “Ghost in the Machine” or “Synchronicity.” No school disco was complete without an end-of-the-evening dance-floor gropefest to the aforementioned “Every Breath You Take.” If you’re between 30 and 40, and say you don’t remember “Message in a Bottle” or “Roxanne,” I’m calling you a liar.

But by 1985, it was all over, the band fracturing amidst a tangle of musical differences and downright personal hatred.

Sting’s solo career has always been a much different prospect to his work with The Police. Constantly giving the impression of being smarter than the average pop star, Sting seemingly positioned himself deliberately outside the popular mainstream. With New Wave dying, it appeared that Sting followed his old audience instead of struggling for a new one. He immersed himself in worthy causes – Amnesty International and the plight of the Brazilian rain forest probably the most high profile – and matured his music into something ready made for compact discs and coffee bars. It was a smooth, often light-hearted, but occasionally densely complex, jazz-informed sound.

While it’s tempting to paint Sting as a razor-sharp opportunist in this respect, it does him a grave disservice to do so. Not so many remember now, but Sumner did actually start his musical career, pre-Police, hawking jazz and other progressive sounds in the pubs of Newcastle, England.

Therefore, it shouldn’t have come as such a surprise to many that his first solo outing, 1985’s “The Dream of the Blue Turtles,” featured Branford Marsalis on sax, Kenny Kirkland on piano and a whole host of tricky rhythmic structures.

That many critics were dismissive of “Blue Turtles,” and indeed of much that has come since, probably has as much to do with Sting the artist as the art of Sting. It’s without question that Sting was, and remains, one of the more erudite personalities to emerge from New Wave.

Unfortunately, he seemed to know that all too well. And us journalists like little less than people who think they know as much as we do. That’s not to say that all accusations of Sting being pompous, po-faced or preachy were groundless, but Sting, for my money, always was too self-aware to be as self-absorbed as he was accused of being.

And he has, in many ways, had the last laugh. After all, he is the one who is still standing, still pushing his causes, and still racking up radio play and platinum records. “Nothing Like the Sun” in 1987, and 1993’s “Ten Summoner’s Tales” both did huge business. And if I’d been cut in on a tiny piece of the action from “Fields of Gold,” his greatest hits album, well, I wouldn’t be writing this.

As for the album he’s bringing to Portland, “Brand New Day,” it’s a little airy in places, a little more dance-informed in others, has top-hole musicians, whistlestop global tourism and easy vibes in seven different languages. If not entirely business as usual, then at least business with minimal disruption.

So where is Sting’s musical career headed? Quite probably just in lazy looping circles. But his altruism continues apace as, forever concerned with the welfare of those who live in vast forests, he brings his sleek show to Maine.