November 21, 2009

Sting has said that his latest album, "If on a Winter's Night . . .," was inspired by his favorite cold-weather season. But what's surprising about the best cuts from the 15-track set is how much heat the Police frontman and his varied collaborators create. On "Christmas at Sea"—a Robert Louis Stevenson poem set to music by Sting and Scottish harpist Mary MacMaster—the players layer folky string-band licks over a percolating African-inspired groove, and "The Burning Babe"—based on a 16th-century poem by the Jesuit writer Robert Southwell —climaxes in a surprisingly fierce bit of sax-and-drums clatter by jazz veterans Kenny Garrett and Jack DeJohnette. Elsewhere, Sting recasts "The Hounds of Winter" (from his 1996 album "Mercury Falling") as a slow-mo bossa nova with percussion by Brazil's Cyro Baptista. And "Hurdy Gurdy Man" turns a bit of Schubert into a fireside lullaby.—Mikael Wood

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