23rd Century R&B since 1999

The swift blaze of a hot fire is a rare thing “up norf” on the shores of Lake Ontario. But it did get a lit­tle warm dur­ing Burnt Sugar’s visit to Har­bour Front in Toronto… and not just from the com­bustible con­coc­tion the Suga’ peo­ple cooked up… but from bright-sunny days, upper 70’s weather-uncharacteristically still going strong at the end of the north’s sum­mer (which is known to flip into the next sea­son with only a day’s notice after the offi­cial change date), a Hot & Spicy Food Fes­ti­val, the Rebirth Brass Band and the great Irma Thomas sound­ing like she’s still 25 years old, all within a hun­dred yards from one another, day in and day out to boot!

What more can a musi­cian ask for on a gig than good food, good music and respect?  The crew this ’round was Greg Tate, Trevor Holder, Jared Nick­er­son, Moist Paula Hen­der­son, Mazz Swift, Dave Smith, Ben Tyree, Yours Truly… and our lovely road man­ager — LaRonda Davis.

The respect of Burnt Sugar weighed noth­ing against the honor of corn!  I thought there was a short­age of corn in Canada the way folk lined up for roasted corn on the cob and corn soup at a ven­dor near our tent. I men­tioned to sev­eral peo­ple how I would have par­boiled them jok­ers, threw some spice on then put them over some hard­wood char­coal for a grill-finish… whew-buddy!
But of course it would have not been the same and that is why I would not have had the line my brethren did at their spot… the con­nois­seur knew bet­ter… and more power to the ven­dors who did as well!

Other than that, it was Burnt Sugar in the morn­ing (work­shop) and Burnt Sugar in the evening (kickin’ it live and off the top of the dome) in the Brig­an­tine Room.

We had a good ol’ time and musi­cal exper­i­men­ta­tion was at a high other than the moment we slipped into “Shake Your Body Down (To the Ground)” 2-thirds into the hour & 1/2 set the 1st night we played in Toronto and our con­duc­tor, Mr. Greg Tate even put a spin on that, hav­ing vio­lin­ist Mazz Swift riff on the string parts and sing only part of the lyrics after he, for 5 min­utes or so teased the audi­ence with var­i­ous Michael Jack­son sam­ples on his lap­top segued by some roman­tic piano pas­sages totally unre­lated to MJ’s music. BRILLIANT! There’s a lot to be said about build­ing ideas on a reg­u­lar stage in the same room under the con­di­tions pre­vi­ously mentioned.…(even though it was only 2 nights).

The chal­lenge becomes that of the audi­ence and famil­iar­ity could never breed con­tempt amongst Burnt Sugar peo­ple… and I say that with love for our audi­ence.  So yes, it was fresh every time we hit the stage and hope­fully we inspired a few souls!  Oh, did I men­tion we held work­shops also?   The work­shops were a joy too!   It went some­thing like this: A few musi­cians got word we were doing work­shops “up norf” in the early after­noon of Sun­day and Mon­day, and joined us at the bay.

There was a man­dolin­ist, a bas­soon­ist, a Gu zhenge (Chi­nese zither) player, a percussionist/keyboardist and a vocal­ist.   Greg invited them on stage along with their instru­ments to help us cre­ate a brew for the teach­ing…, then he broke down the sci­ence of con­duc­tion while the audi­ence lis­tened…  the  band dis­played some musi­cal ideas that Greg began to shape with his baton and there we were with a new con­fig­u­ra­tion of sound!  Now, there was no way we were leav­ing that happy-smiling audi­ence of love out of the fun on this beau­ti­ful afternoon!

This was our chance to cre­ate a small city of north­ern cacoph­ony caramelized by the “Sugar… So Greg granted me the baton and I took the plea­sure of includ­ing and facil­i­tat­ing the sur­round­ing audi­ence in Burnt Sugar mad­ness… I indoc­tri­nated them into the band through a brief expla­na­tion of what we are, the ele­ments we draw from (by hav­ing the band play sev­eral styles of music in the purest form pos­si­ble) and how they could add, sub­tract and apply them­selves to this mad math called Con­duc­tion!  I got them chant­ing, singing, doing call & response, yelling, beat-boxing, you name it…!  Cued them in and out, played with the space Greg and the band cre­ated and sweat like crazy!

As you can imag­ine, kids are brave but ini­tially shy… so when they open up they often express them­selves with the all encom­pass­ing SCREAM!!!  I heard that por­tion was a bit unbear­able for some band mem­bers… and I’ll take the blame for that… next time I’ll pull back on that mic… sorry guys.  Like John Lee Hooker said: “they got to get it out”.   After a few moments, sev­eral adults in the crowd began to raise their hands to get my atten­tion so they could spew some new found ideas in the micro­phone I was hold­ing… one cat blew some sweet notes into a bot­tle and there was this lit­tle girl who walked and ran with me because she kept com­ing up with ideas and was lov­ing the rhythm of the band!  She was great!

Oh yeah baby, hot fun at the end of sum­mer­time is what it was! Folks laid out on the grass with their kids crawl­ing on them, try­ing to sing with mouths full of veg­gie hot dogs drip­ping condi­ments in their laps, kids try­ing to scat but end up spit­ting into the mic, I move to the next inspired indi­vid­ual who wants the mic… so I wipe it on my shirt under my arm because I know they just saw that other kid spit all over it…, mean­time, some mys­te­ri­ous lady from some­where in the caribbean has been hold­ing her hand out for the mic because she has a musi­cal idea she wants to share with the world… yeah, they were carmelizin’ in the sun on the most mag­nif­i­cent astro turf that side of the NFL has ever seen!  If I may say so, I think we sort-a set things off on Sun­day and Monday!

The fes­ti­val itself drew love… I never saw a fes­ti­val with so many cou­ples and fam­i­lies all hugged up, no drama and enjoy­ing the music like this… They could’ve called this the Hot & Spicy Love Fes­ti­val! Right on to the fes­ti­val orga­niz­ers at the Har­bour Front in Toronto! You made it lovely!

I must admit, I am a fan of the north­ern cli­mate and I won­der if there are oth­ers in my fam­ily who like it “up norf”…I ask because they’re from the south… Lol!  Oh well, I love it!  What can I say!?  When we trek north I get all warm inside!  I grew up in New York City and I guess I’m one who feels I must prac­tice life in the harsh­est con­di­tions to enjoy life in the (decep­tively) mildest. Can you com­plete this com­pound word — BULL…!?   I just want the fresh­est trout I can get my hands on, a view of a great lake or ocean which offers a sense of free­dom and the feel­ing that nature is on my side!  So, yeah, baby!  I get caramelized up north, Burnt Sugar style.

- B. Mack