Art & Creativity Quote by Andy Summers

Summers is naming the quiet trap every veteran player knows: the moment your chops get so fluent they start speaking in cliches. “Generic” here isn’t a genre tag so much as an accusation. It’s what happens when jazz becomes a bundle of tasteful substitutions and fusion becomes a showroom for expensive gear, all sheen and no stakes. By framing his goal negatively - avoiding rather than chasing - he signals an ethic of resistance: don’t let the industry’s categories tell you what counts as sophistication.

The context matters. Summers comes from The Police, a band that made its name by smuggling complexity into pop without announcing it: reggae borrowings, odd rhythmic angles, a guitar style built as much on negative space as on riffs. When he pivots toward jazz-adjacent work, the gravitational pull is toward “proper” credentials. His refusal reads as a preemptive defense against being reclassified as a legacy rocker cosplaying as a jazz guy. He wants the exploratory permission of jazz and fusion without the museum rules.

The subtext is also about identity. “Generic jazz” and “fusion” aren’t insults to the traditions; they’re insults to the predictable performance of those traditions. Summers is staking out a middle ground where sophistication is measured by surprise, not by compliance. It’s a musician saying: if the listener can guess the next eight bars, I’ve already lost.