Christian McBride Big Band with Sting and Andy Summers: Murder by Numbers

It seems that Sting revisits "Murder by Numbers" with once-in-a-lifetime collaborations as a way to comment on the corrupt pulse of the times.

He did so in 1988—as a pointed response to televangelist Jimmy Swaggart's claim that the song was "written by the devil"—with Frank Zappa on the stage of Chicago's Auditorium Theater, after Swaggart's sexual scandals debacle. You can listen to that rendition on Zappa's Broadway the Hard Way. And he's just done it again, at the invitation of Christian McBride.

The lyrics of this song—which many mistook as glorifying serial killers when it actually pointed fingers at politicians and world leaders in the aftermath of the Falklands/Malvinas War—feel today as urgent as ever: "You can reach the top of your profession, if you become the leader of the land: murder is the sport of the elected, and you don't need to lift a finger of your hand."

Released in 1983 as the B side of "Every Breath You Take"—and boy, was there ever a case where the B side was more A side than the A side—"Murder by Numbers" is one of the pinnacles of The Police songbook. An instant classic, recorded in a single take, it foretells the jazzier side of its authors, Sting and Andy Summers. This Big Band rendition from McBride's Without Further Ado, Vol. 1 teases out that jazzier side even more and has the added merit of bringing Sting and Summers back together for the first time since The Police's 2007-2008 reunion tour. Too bad Stewart Copeland wasn't part of this experiment, but Pedrito Martinez brings plenty of rhythmic fire.

If you like this Christian McBride Big Band treatment, look for the version that Sting sang with the Gil Evans Orchestra at a legendary Umbria Jazz performance in July of 1987. You won't regret it.