The Bend · Creative Series · Chapter One
A Jazz Retrospective

STINGFOUR DECADES · ONE ROOM

The songbook, unboxed. The catalog, set loose. Tonight, history plays forward.

This isn't a cover night — it's a rearview mirror with the top down. Milwaukee & Madison's finest jazz players walk Sting's four-decade arc through harmony, improvisation, and a room small enough to feel every turn.

SEP 10Thursday · 2026
7:30 PMDoors & lounge
FROM $30.75Vivenu
Get Tickets Enter the experience
Jazz ensemble — A Jazz Tribute to Sting at The Bend
Sep 10 · 7:30 PM The ensemble · Live at The Bend

The retrospective lens

STING & JAZZ
WERE NEVER STRANGERS

A retrospective looks backward to understand what's still alive. Sting's songbook was always jazz-adjacent — modal harmony, storytelling that breathes, changes that don't resolve where you expect. Englishman in New York was written with Bill Evans in mind. Dream of the Blue Turtles put Branford Marsalis, Kenny Kirkland, and Omar Hakim on a pop record and rewrote the rules.

Tonight, that history gets a live chapter: a working quintet reharmonizing four decades — hits, deep cuts, and the space between them where improvisation lives.

  • 1977
    Last Exit to BrooklynSting's pre-Police jazz fusion project — the thread starts here.
  • 1985
    Dream of the Blue TurtlesA jazz supergroup behind every track. The template for tonight.
  • 2026
    The Bend · Main StreetThe retrospective lands here — intimate, live, unrepeated.

"Jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night, but differently each time."

— Sting · on improvisation & songcraft

A retrospective isn't nostalgia — it's the past made present, played differently every time the lights go down.

"You know every word. You've never heard it quite like this."

The Bend Creative Force

The Bend Creative Force

DESIGNED AS
AN EXPERIENCE.

We're launching a creative force at The Bend — programming built around how patrons feel the night, not just what plays on stage. This Jazz Retrospective is the prototype: arrive early, settle in, let four decades unfold in a room built for listening.

Lounge First

Doors open to a pre-show atmosphere on Main Street — cocktails, conversation, and the blade sign glowing above downtown. The night starts before the downbeat.

Intimate Scale

400 seats, not an arena. You hear the brush on the snare. You catch the glance between piano and bass. This is jazz the way it's meant to be heard.

Hits & Deep Cuts

Expect the songs you came for — plus the album tracks that only make sense in a room this close. Every arrangement built for live improvisation.

Historic Room

Built in 1929 for vaudeville. Restored for moments exactly like this — where a Wisconsin jazz all-star cast meets a songwriter who never left the jazz club behind.

Creative Series

This retrospective opens a new lane — concept, production, and journey designed as one creative act from the first poster to the last note.

THE ENSEMBLE

Five players. One songbook. Madison & Milwaukee's finest — the voices behind Phat Phunktion, Steely Dane, and rooms that know how to swing.

Al Falaschi Vocals Phat Phunktion · Steely Dane
Tim Whalen Piano Phat Phunktion · solo jazz
Ben Dameron Guitar Monster tone & comping
John Christensen Bass Anchor of the groove
Hannah Johnson Drums Swing, brush & fire

THE
SONGBOOK

A retrospective in motion — chapters from four decades, arranged for quintet, with room to wander. The set breathes live; these are the pages we're turning.

BE THERE
WHEN IT PLAYS FORWARD.

Sting · A Jazz Retrospective · Thu, Sep 10 · 7:30 PM · The Bend Theater

Tickets from $30.75 · Vivenu

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