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Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber
Burnt Sugar was originally conceived as a forum for the New York area improvisational musician to compose, record and perform material which reflects the breadth and depth of American diasparan music in the 21st century. The intent of the Arkestra Chamber, through the deployment of Butch Morris’s conduction system, is to make every performance a fresh interpretation of its constituent parts.
Rather than limit ourselves to the straight jackets that the commercial recording industry uses to market contemporary Black Music, Burnt Sugar freely moves amongst many styles, eras and genres to devise its own exciting hybrids. These hybrids are based on a solid foundation of various musical traditions and the use of cutting-edge music technology. In this sense the group mission honors its deepest inspirations, the first post-modernists of American music – Duke Ellington, Sun Ra, Parliament Funkadelic and The Art Ensemble of Chicago.
This very accomplished crew has playing credits that range from Melvin Van Peebles, Toshi Reagon, DJ Logic, Gary Lucas, TV On The Radio, Tamar Kali, Phish, William Parker, Liz Wright, The Holmes Brothers, Wadada Leo Smith, The The, David Murray and Joseph Bowie.
Arkestra Conductor Greg Tate says, “Burnt Sugar got the nerve to claim Sly Stone, Morton Feldman, Billie Holiday, Jimi Hendrix and Jean Luc Ponty as progenitors. Our player-ranks include known Irish fiddlers, AACM refugees, Afro-punk rejects, unrepentant beboppers, feminist rappers, jitterbugging doowoppers, frankly loud funk-a-teers and rodeo stars of the digital divide.”
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Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber: Making Love to the Dark Ages
by Chris M. Slawecki
Composer Greg Tate leads Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber through melodic and harmonic structures, using a unique repertoire of physical gestures and expressions known not as conducting but as conduction. Tate christened this ensemble to honor the communal exploratory nature of Sun Ra's Arkestra and the Wu Tang Clan's 36 Chambers: I wanted to conflate those two mystical generations. Both are in the tradition of mystic composers. Their sound comes from these ideas about science and art and ...
read moreBurnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber: Making Love to the Dark Ages
by Glenn Astarita
This band partly signifies the New York City downtown aura that resides as a major genre-slashing musical force, spanning several decades. Led by bandleader Greg Tate who lifts a few pages from conductor/composer Butch Morris' conduction modus operandi, where hand gestures, eye contact and motion serve as the guiding light.With structured song forms and hefty doses of improvisation amid translucent harmonic evolvements, the band captures some of bandleader Sun Ra's off-kilter large digressions and spacey breakouts. And there's ...
read moreBurnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber: Live 01: Not April in Paris
by Rico Cleffi
There are live albums where you just had to be there, and there are ones that take you there. This documentation of a 2001 Burnt Sugar performance is of the latter variety. It's nice to see somebody putting their money where their mouth is. Cultural critic Greg Tate isn't content to just judge other peoples' art. In Burnt Sugar he conducts a fine group of musicians. But to call this Tate's project would be unfair to these excellent ...
read moreGreg Tate / Burnt Sugar Interview
Source:
Michael Ricci
Greg Tate/Burnt Sugar Interview - Sun Ra & Superheroes. Greg Tate/Burnt Sugar Interview - A village voice. This interview is part of the book project “under your skin" which includes Interviews with: Anthony Braxton, Ornette Coleman, Chuck D - Public Enemy, Taj Mahal, Yusef Lateef, Melvin Gibbs, Bob James, Skip Mcdonald, Erika Stucky, Living Colour, Rhonda Smith, Dj Rob Swift, Marilyn Crispell, Dick Griffin, Billy Bang, ...
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Burnt Sugar: Dadaist Shapeshifting Improvisers
Source:
rock paper scissors, inc.
Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber turns music inside out Bandleader Greg Tate plays the band" using a technique called conduction, which gets its name from the field of physics, and which was developed by jazz conductor Butch Morris. In Tates hands, Burnt Sugar combines sounds together with a funky twist, snagging idiomatic metaphors from film editing techniques and hip hop culture. When the band plays live, they often do so with little more than a concept or melody in mind, ...
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