RELEASE DATE: 28 October 1985
RELEASE COUNTRY: UNITED KINGDOM
The 1985 documentary 'Bring On The Night' covers the formative stages of the band assembled by Sting that plays the jazz infused pop of his first solo album 'The Dream Of The Blue Turtles'. Director Michael Apted - who has won acclaim for documentaries such as his ongoing series tracking the lives of a varied group of Britons at seven year intervals (most recently 1991's '35Up') and 'Moving The Mountain' in 1995, a film produced by Trudie Styler, as well as such feature films as 'Coalminer's Daughter' (1980), 'Gorillas In The Mist' (1988) - amassed 350,000 feet of film in his nine day shoot following Sting and his Blue Turtles from their rehearsal at a gorgeous French chateau to their opening performance at Paris's intimate Theatre Mogador. In addition to capturing the anxieties surrounding Sting's first post-Police endeavour, 'Bring On The Night' serves as a showcase for the brilliant young American jazz musicians that comprised the Blue Turtles band. Keyboardist Kenny Kirkland and saxophonist Branford Marsalis (who reportedly caused a familial rift by bolting brother Wynton's classic jazz quintet to join Sting's incursion into jazz-based pop) demonstrate their sublime musicianship throughout the film. Daryl Jones' bass provides the band's indispensable rhythmic foundation (Jones has since evolved from a 'Blue Turtle' to a Voodoo Lounge lizard as the bassist for the Rolling Stones), Omar Hakim's drumming is simply incendiary, particularly (and fittingly) on his bravura solo which brings the Mogador version of 'I Burn For You' to a scorching crescendo. Whilst Marsalis's effervescent wit steals as many scenes as his ascendant sax, ultimately this is Sting's table as one white haired sage put it, and it is the blond leading man who caps the film's blend of 'Blue Turtle' compositions and Police standards with a classy voice and guitar solo encore rendition of 'Message' In A Bottle. Indeed, only the forces of nature can upstage Sting in 'Bring On The Night' when Trudie goes into labour on the night of the second Mogador performance Apted's cameras are, sure enough, right there to record the debut appearance of Jake Sumner, Sting and Trudie's second child for the silver screen.