If you're looking for soothing acoustic jazz guitar, this is the jackpot. Andy Summers (of The Police) and John Etheridge (who played with Soft Machine) both have virtuoso level skill on guitar and they play together fantastically. Make no mistake, this CD is almost all guitar duets. There's no drums or keyboards, and very little bass. It's very mellow stuff. Every tune on this CD consistently shows how great acoustic guitar can sound.

A compilation from these three albums: The Golden Wire 1989, Charming Snakes 1990, World Gone Strange 1991.
While Andy Summers is best known as the guitarist in the Police, he has since forged a successful and acclaimed solo career with new age-influenced contemporary instrumental music that, like his work with Sting and company, draws on his love for jazz and his fascination with creating instrumental textures.

It is not often that a Rock musician decides to cross over into much more advanced musical environment, such as Jazz or World Music and does so completely and seriously. Police guitarist Andy Summers, obviously known to most Rock listeners on this planet, is one of those musicians, who changed their path and successfully developed a "new" career. This album, which is the second guitar duo recording with the Brazilian (born in Argentina) virtuoso guitarist Victor Biglione, presents Summers as a monster acoustic guitar player and a most sensitive performer. The duo performs material ranging from Jazz standards to World Music pieces, all of which were composed by great Brazilian musicians (Hermeto Pascoal, Tom Jobim and others) and all of which is absolutely brilliant. This is guitar heaven!

After two albums exploring the boundaries of jazz via the music of Thelonious Monk (Green Chimneys) and Charles Mingus (Peggy's Blue Skylight), ex-Police guitarist Andy Summers returns to original compositions with a new band that moves forward through a swarm of genres on Earth + Sky. Employing two keyboard players, John Novello and John Beasley, as well as drummer Vinnie Colaiuta, saxophonist Katisse Buckingham, and bassist Abraham Laboriel, Summers creates a body of work that looks through jazz, rock, and folk forms and is technology based while also using organic rhythms and atmospherics. While some might see this as retrenchment, Summers, unlike so many of the superchopper guitarists out there, is a melodist whose lyricism is inescapable in virtually everything he plays…

In a similar vein as his 1999 release Green Chimneys: The Music of Thelonious Monk, guitarist Summers now offers tribute to jazz pioneer Charles Mingus. The collection is a little cobbled together, with an ill-conceived rap from Q-Tip over "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" and a sparse, unfunky reading of "Cumbia Jazz Fusion," but the former Policeman's bright guitar work works hard at tying it all together. Making more admirable guest spots are Randy Brecker bringing his crossover jazz trumpet to "Boogie Stop Shuffle," Deborah Harry singing on "Weird Nightmare," and the genre-bending Kronos Quartet performing a string arrangement of the final track "Myself." While at times overproduced and slick, Summers must be commended for approaching Mingus' daunting music head on and adapting it as his own.

Guitarist Andy Summers long ago shed his Police-man's uniform to take a stab at being a jazz fusion guitarist, and this is his toughest test, tackling 13 of Thelonious Monk's most well known pieces. His backing band has some considerable talent; drummer Peter Erskine, organist Joey DeFrancesco, trumpeter Walt Fowler and cellist Hank Roberts are outstanding jazz musicians, and prove their mettle throughout. The CD overall is inconsistent, starting with an out-of-tune bass and an inaccurate reading of the title track. But it gets much better with horn charts, the precise Erskine and searing DeFrancesco saving grace on "Hackensack." Then they really get down with Monk's stealth Misterioso feel on "Brilliant Corners," and an economical Summers works effectively on "Monk's Dream"…

During his post-Police musical career, guitarist Andy Summers has compiled a series of altogether distinctive, fusion-based solo outings marked by his shrewd compositional pen and laudable technical acumen. Moreover, Summers displays a somewhat lyrically driven guitar sound, teeming with animated lines, a rubato-like methodology, and bone-crushing crunch chords, as evidenced on this 1995 release. Here, the artist garners strong support from ex-Cream drummer Ginger Baker, along with notable session musicians Mitchell Forman (keyboards), Jerry Watts (bass), and Greg Bissonette (drums). More importantly, the guitarist integrates strings (the Trouserfly String Quartet) into this rather vibrant mix, consisting of Afro-Cuban rhythms, wailing lead soloing, East Indian modalities, and more…

On his second consecutive solo album of predominantly instrumental music, former Police guitarist Andy Summers paints a richly textured musical portrait that mixes fusion jazz, Latin and various World Beat elements into an engaging whole.
The onetime guitar-slinger for the New Animals and the Kevin Coyne Band is accompanied by a crack group that includes Alan Holdsworth Band drummer Chad Wackerman, ex-King Crimson bassist Tony Levin and short-lived Mahavishnu Orchestra keyboardist Mitchell Forman. They in turn are joined on various tracks by percussionists Manola Badrena and Mino Cinelu, former Steps Ahead malletman Mike Manieri and Miles Davis Band bass veteran Victor Bailey…

An atmospheric collection of compositions that would be the perfect backdrop for vistas of sunsets in exotic lands, Summers went a little more mainstream with this release than he had with Mysterious Barricades and his two projects with Robert Fripp. The textures here have more in common with his work as guitarist for the Police, though his playing is better highlighted in this solo context. Titles such as "The Island of Silk" and "Rain Forest in Manhattan" give a clue as to the almost dreamlike feel Summers is going for. He is largely successful, his uniquely fluid guitar tone combining with instruments such as wooden flute, percussion, oboe, and xianjiang tambourine, while "Piya Tose" features Indian vocalist Najma Akhtar. It's an at once soothing and adventurous album and is highly recommended.

Perhaps Summers fame as the guitarist for"The police" harms him here as the expectations from his first solo project must have been immense. His singing abilities are very limited and his abilities as a guitarist are not shown enough here. But this is nonetheless a good pop album with fine production and a bunch of potential hits,the best of which are "eyes of a stranger" and 'nowhere'. This is actually the only 'Pop' album from him as his later work is purely instrumental.

The former Police guitarist's first solo instrumental album turns out to be a gentle, thoroughly domesticated continuation of his looping soundscapes with Robert Fripp earlier in the 1980s ("I Advance Masked"). Keyboardist David Hentschel is a co-conspirator on several tracks, though Summers is perfectly content to go it alone on others. With its repeated guitar loops, interactive counterlines, gentle washes of keyboards, advancing and receding waves of effects, Summers is out to sooth and refresh, not to challenge and disturb - and the music drifts lazily toward the shores of the soporific New Age. "Shining Sea" definitely has a kinship with the sound of the Fripp collaborations, but shorn of their forbidding edges, and the rest floats in and out, leaving barely a trace behind. It's all very pretty and it all sounds somewhat innocuous today, now that the phenomenon of tape or digital loops is no longer an avant-garde pet preserve.

Though perhaps best (or at least better) known for his work with the Police, guitarist Andy Summers seems to be doing rather well for himself. He may not be filling arenas and attracting screaming teenage girls, but their mothers can scream pretty loud as well, and as it is to them that Summers now appears to be playing, his maturity and ability to look forward work in his favor. Backed by bassist Tony Levin and drummer Gregg Bissonette (except on "Big Thing," which features the touring band of Jerry Watts on basses and Bernie Dresel on cymbal-laden drum set), Summers works well as a frontman. In fact, the lack of single-named eco-conscious smoothies and relatives of famous composers allows Summers to spread out and explore his music…

Many a guitar fan would have predicted that a summit between legendary guitarists Andy Summers (the Police) and Robert Fripp (King Crimson) would result in a guitar solofest. But the music on their first collaboration together, I Advance Masked, stresses guitar textures and moods over indulgent soloing. Although the recording sessions weren't entirely enjoyable for Summers (who was experiencing marital problems at the time), some very beautiful music can be found on the resulting album. The music for the track "Girl on a Swing" does an excellent job of conveying the song's title in one's mind, and the duo's guitars weave wonderful polyrhythmic guitar lines throughout "China – Yellow Leader." "The Truth of Skies" is an atmospheric piece, created by a wash of keyboard sounds and guitar dissonance, while "New Marimba" would have sounded right at home on an early-'80s King Crimson album. I Advance Masked has a dreamlike quality to it, and is definitely not typical rock music. It's highly recommended to fans of these two great and original guitarists.

On Andy Summers and Robert Fripp's second album, Bewitched, the duo offered a new batch of their instrumental songs, which turned out to be much more rock-oriented than their texturized 1982 debut, I Advance Masked. The album was originally going to be a more musically varied affair – at the time, Summers talked about recording calypso and Tex-Mex/Ry Cooder-like tunes with Fripp, but they never saw the light of day. Like its predecessor, it contains plenty of great guitar work, with songwriting being stressed over instrumental virtuosity. For example, Summers and Fripp know how to subtly insert challenging sections into their songs (such as the 7/4 time signature in "Maquillage"), without making them seem like an obvious attempt to impress fellow musicians. Although '80s-sounding electronic drums are primarily used for backbeats (such as the track "Train"), it doesn't take away from the album's charm. Whereas their last album featured a few compositions that were quite King Crimson-like, their sophomore effort contains a few that sound like Police instrumentals (the title track). Unfortunately, Bewitched would prove to be Summers and Fripp's last collaboration together.