Wild Concerto (2025), by Stewart Copeland

Forty years after unleashing his groundbreaking Africa-based album The Rhythmatist, Police founder and drummer Stewart Copeland releases its proper successor, the multi-continent-flavored Wild Concerto.

While the concept is the same, there are major differences. The Rhythmatist features the sounds of African tribes and wildlife recorded by Copeland, who then composed music around them and played all the studio instruments himself. Wild Concerto spotlights the sounds of wildlife and nature across many continents, this time recorded by audio preservationist Martyn Stewart. Copeland also composed music around these recordings, but this time he orchestrated the score for the Kingdom Orchestra conducted by Troy Miller.

 

Copeland keeps the whole album moving with his trademark drums and percussion, as well as a notable lineup of session players on bass, guitar, piano, and saxophone.

 

Like The Rhythmatist, Wild Concerto is exhilarating and remarkable in how Copeland constructs the music so that it is literally accompanying the sounds of nature and wildlife. It is basically a duet between the musicians in the studio and the animals out in the wild.

 

Wild Concerto is also sonically similar to Copeland’s African-themed soundtrack for the 1996 Discovery Channel documentary, The Leopard Son.

 

The result is a unique symphonic fusion of classical music and the sounds of nature, showcasing Copeland’s quirky compositional instincts along with hints of jazz and pop.

 

--Raj Manoharan

Transcendence (2025), by Shambhu

I reviewed a couple of guitarist Shambhu’s albums in the 2010s when I was actively reviewing contemporary instrumental jazz/new age/fusion releases, but I had since lost track of his work. Now I’ve found myself back on the path again, thanks to Shambhu’s radiant and illuminating retrospective collection, Transcendence.

Comprised of ten choice cuts culled from the last fifteen years of Shambhu’s solo career and remixed in the spatially expansive sonic resolution of Dolby Atmos, the album truly lives up to its title in elevating listeners above the chaos and confusion of the crazy times we are living in. But regardless of when and where we find ourselves listening, the music is spiritually, emotionally, and psychologically therapeutic, as well as inspirational and uplifting. In this way, the album is timeless.

 

The primary instrument here is Shambhu’s acoustic guitar, sometimes by itself and other times accompanied by notable guest artists on guitar, bass, keyboards, flute, violin, cello, horns, percussion, and voice.

 

The album is consistent and flawless from beginning to end, never underwhelming or overbearing, just right. As varied as each track is, from beautifully simple to intricately lush, all of the tunes are thoughtful, sensitive, and, yes, transcendent.

 

Whether you are familiar with or are new to Shambhu’s work, or you just need something to take you away and reset you, this album delivers the goods.

 

Shambhu’s Transcendence exudes peace, love, and kindness.

 

--Raj Manoharan

For the Love of George (2025), by Robin Nolan

George Harrison reaches out from The Great Beyond to bless us all with a gift that infuses his memory and his legacy with new vigor and energy. That gift is literally and figuratively For the Love of George, an album of acoustic instrumental covers of classic Harrisongs by acclaimed and accomplished gypsy jazz guitarist Robin Nolan.

Nolan brings his ambidextrous six-string skills to bear on clever reinterpretations of nine Harrison tracks, the Paul McCartney and John Lennon Beatles song “And I Love Her’ – whose inventive guitar riff McCartney credits to Harrison – and a completely new composition based on chords that Harrison wrote on an envelope that was found shortly after his passing in 2001.

The spirit of Harrison permeates the album, not only because most of the songs are his, but also because the album was recorded at his Friar Park estate in England, with Nolan exclusively playing several of Harrison’s guitars. Harrison was also a friend of Nolan’s and became sort of a musical father figure to Nolan in the years before Harrison’s passing.

 

I am remiss that I had been previously unaware of Nolan’s career all these years. He has been performing and recording professionally since the early 1990s, most predominantly in the gypsy jazz guitar style made famous by the late, great icon, Django Reinhardt.

 

But Nolan is far more than just a gypsy jazz guitarist. He is a fantastic and all-around versatile musician, easily and effortlessly adaptable to any style and genre. Just based on this album alone, I now consider him one of my favorite guitarists, up there with greats such as Andy Summers, Allan Holdsworth, Pat Metheny, Eric Johnson, Hiram Bullock, Paul Speer, and Shambhu.

 

Nolan’s adaptations of Harrison’s music are generally faithful and recognizable while brimming with Nolan’s unique and flavorful flourishes. The only jarring tune is Nolan’s take on “My Sweet Lord,” but only because the new version is so different in tempo and style compared to the original. While Harrison’s song is a reverent, heartfelt, and loving pop hymn to The Supreme Being, Nolan’s take is jaunty and upbeat and jazzy and snazzy. In and of itself, Nolan’s version is perfectly fine. It’s just that this apple falls the farthest from its tree.

 

The title track, while mostly original, completely exudes the feel and sound of Harrison. This is obviously partly due to the fact that it’s based on Harrison’s chords, but Nolan completes it totally in the style of Harrison while imbuing it with his own sonic footprint. In the end, both the song and the album become both of theirs, labors of love in which Nolan and Harrison become synonymous. For the Love of George is literally Nolan’s love of George.

 

George Harrison would be proud.

 

--Raj Manoharan

The Complete Recordings 1981-1984, by Andy Summers and Robert Fripp, Due April 11, 2025

In the early to mid 1980s, guitarists Andy Summers of The Police and Robert Fripp of King Crimson collaborated on two albums of progressive and experimental electric guitar music, I Advance Masked (1982) and Bewitched (1984).

Both albums have long been held in high regard by the guitar community, with the first one even cracking the Billboard 200 charts.

Now both albums are being rereleased over 40 years later with bonus tracks as part of The Complete Recordings 1981-1984, which includes a third album of previously unreleased material, entitled Mother Hold the Candle Steady.

The 3CD/1Blu-Ray set is scheduled for release on April 11, 2025, with the first two singles, “Skyline” and "Entropy Pulse," from the “new” album currently available for download and streaming.

https://www.dgmlive.com/news/andy-summers-and-robert-fripp

--Raj Manoharan

 

Smallcreep’s Day (1980), by Mike Rutherford

Smallcreep’s Day, the debut solo album by Mike Rutherford, is perhaps the greatest and most significant work the Genesis and Mike and the Mechanics bassist/guitarist has ever committed to record. It is Rutherford’s premier showcase as a composer, bandleader, and musician.

Unlike his notoriously entertaining second solo album, the appropriately titled Acting Very Strange (1982), Rutherford wisely leaves the vocal duties to another singer, a strategy Rutherford utilized to maximum effect in Mike and the Mechanics. This results in fantastic and compelling vocals, allowing Rutherford to concentrate on orchestrating a musical masterwork.

 

The record is a concept album based on a 1965 novel titled Mr. Smallcreep’s Day, about the trials and travails of a hapless factory worker. I can follow the concept somewhat, but I still haven’t deciphered the full impact of what is being stated here. However, I do get the sense from the grandiosity of the music that something deep and profound is unfolding.

 

The real marvel here is the outstanding musicianship on display. Rutherford has assembled a fantastic band here, with Noel McCalla on vocals, Anthony Phillips on keyboards, Morris Pert on percussion, and Simon Phillips on drums. Of course, the highlight is Rutherford’s work on bass and guitar, the latter of which is the most intense and voluminous Rutherford has ever recorded, especially in comparison to his work with Genesis and Mike and the Mechanics.

 

Along with Andy Summers of The Police, Rutherford was one of the most underrated guitarists of the 1980s, especially because his guitar work was directed at serving the song rather than spotlighting his musical prowess.

 

But any doubt about Rutherford’s abilities is completely erased as this album is literally brimming with his stomping bass, lyrical acoustic and electric guitars, and blazing guitar synthesizer. If he hadn’t already done so, Rutherford reveals himself to be a wide-ranging, diverse, superb, and accomplished guitarist.

 

--Raj Manoharan

Happy Birthday, Andy Summers!

On New Year's Eve, Tuesday, December 31, 2024, Andy Summers – my favorite guitarist and musician of all time – turned 82 years old.

I first became acquainted with the music of Summers in 1983 at the age of 10 in a Catholic elementary school classroom when I heard a hypnotic and futuristic-sounding pop/rock song emanating from the radio of Candy, my substitute teacher. When I asked what the song was and who recorded it, I was promptly informed that it was “Spirits in the Material World” by The Police. I was instantly hooked, so much so that that Christmas, my parents got me a vinyl copy of Synchronicity, The Police’s fifth and final studio album and one of the biggest hits of the year. The Police have since remained my favorite rock band of all time.

Summers was the guitarist for the mega-popular group, who were active in the late 1970s and early 1980s and reunited for a 30th anniversary tour in 2007 and 2008. Being a good decade older than his bandmates Sting and Stewart Copeland, Summers began his professional recording career in the early 1960s, playing for Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band (which later became the psychedelic but short-lived Dantalian’s Chariot), Eric Burdon’s New Animals, and Soft Machine. After formally studying guitar at California State University, Northridge, from the late 1960s to the early 1970s, Summers returned to England and plied his trade as a session guitarist for Joan Armatrading, Neil Sedaka, Kevin Coyne, and Deep Purple’s Jon Lord before achieving monumental success and international stardom with The Police.

After the dissolution of The Police in the early 1980s, Summers scored some Hollywood films (Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Weekend at Bernie’s) and recorded one rock vocal album before establishing himself as an acclaimed and accomplished contemporary instrumental guitarist across a variety of styles, including jazz, fusion, new age, and world music.

I was privileged to interview Summers by telephone in Fall 2000 for the January 2001 issue of DirecTV: The Guide. I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered that Summers posted a notice of the interview in the news section of his Web site. Later, I met Summers in person during his book tour in Fall 2006, just a few months before The Police reunited for a 30th anniversary reunion tour, which I was fortunate to attend twice, first at Giants Stadium in August 2007 and then at PNC Bank Arts Center in August 2008.

I highly recommend the following Andy Summers solo albums: XYZ, Mysterious Barricades, The Golden Wire, Charming Snakes, World Gone Strange, Synaesthesia, Earth + Sky, Harmonics of the Night, and Vertiginous Canyons.

--Raj Manoharan

Adventures in Space (2024), by Paul Speer

After being refined by the fires of Ax Inferno and returning from his Sonoran Odyssey of the American Southwest, guitarist Paul Speer launches into the stratosphere with Adventures in Space, one of his finest solo albums and one of the very best electric guitar recordings out there. And I really mean “out there” in every sense of the expression.

While the album and all the songs have space-based and space-inspired names, the music is actually down to Earth and very accessible. This is not typical “space music” at all – it is pure, unadulterated electric guitar, with the high-tech gloss of the space age.

 

The seven organic compositions contained within are driven by Speer’s blazing guitar, thunderous bass, and scintillating synthesizers and Gregg Bissonette’s pulse-pounding drums. Speer’s former musical collaborator David Lanz contributes graceful piano work on “Spacewalk Europa,” and Ron Krasinski provides kinetic drumming on “Black Hole Dance Party.”

 

The most affecting and impactful tune on the album is the beautifully poignant and solemn “Memories of Earth,” which is also one of Speer’s best compositions. It functions as both a futuristic nostalgic reminiscence of our home planet long after the human race has relocated to a more viable world and a present-day exhortation for us to make sure that our precious Earth doesn’t become a memory anytime soon.

 

The whole album is hypnotic and mesmerizing from beginning to end and a fantastic showcase for Speer’s versatile mastery of the electric guitar and his brilliance as a composer.

 

Adventures in Space is further proof that Paul Speer – one of the few remaining true guitar heroes of the Boomer generation along with Andy Summers, Pat Metheny, and Eric Johnson – is showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

 

--Raj Manoharan