The Police’s “Murder By Numbers” is a song with a checkered history. Before it became the vaguely jazz and reggae-inflected song that we know so well, Sting and Andy Summers recorded a demo as an upbeat, drum machine-driven new wave track, and that demo just saw release on the deluxe Synchronicity 40th-anniversary box set last fall. The track wasn’t originally available on the vinyl version of Synchronicity, just the CD and cassette copies. It was also the B-side of the group’s wildly successful “Every Breath You Take” single. Eventually, “Murder By Numbers” provided the title for the 2002 thriller with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Gosling. Now, “Murder By Numbers” gets another chapter in its history, with Sting and Summers reuniting to guest on a jazz version of the track.
