Lifes is a curatorial assemblage, an exercise in synthesis, a composite being, a living software, a durational sequence, a cacophony of intentions, a misunderstanding, a text that dances, an extended conversation, a voice in ruin, a mapping of relations, a lean into the future. Initiated by four commissioned texts and including contributions from more than fifty individuals from various creative fields, Lifes considers the legacy of the so-called total work of art and the possibilities and pitfalls of interdisciplinary art-making.
Contributors: Fahim Amir, Holland Andrews, Elke Auer, Gregory Barnett, Kevin Beasley, Nina Beier, Dwayne Brown, Dora Budor, Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber, Varinia Canto Vila, Elaine Carberry, Sophia Cleary, Kaydence De Mere, L. Frank, Kaye Freeman, Shannon Funchess, Charles Gaines, Ley Gambucci, Abriel Gardner, Piero Gilardi, Jules Gimbrone, Paul Hamilton, Asher Hartman, IONE, Shannon Jackson, Cooper Jacoby, Narissa Johnson, Rindon Johnson, Darrell Jones, Morag Keil, Justin F. Kennedy, Jessika Kenney, Hanieh Khatibi, Bob Kil, Kite, Wayne Koestenbaum, Ralph Lemon, Adam Linder, Tiffany Malakooti, Alucard Mendoza McHaney, Olivia Mole, Roderick Murray, Mariama Noguera-Devers, Nima Nourizadeh, Okwui Okpokwasili, Pauline Oliveros, Aubrey Plaza, Senyawa, Adania Shibli, Micah Silver, Samita Sinha, Meg Stuart, Greg Tate, Mike Taylor, Rosemarie Trockel, Andros Zins-Browne.
Lifes is organized by Aram Moshayedi, Robert Soros Curator, along with curatorial assistant Nicholas Barlow.
Major support for Lifes is provided by Chara Schreyer and Gordon Freund with generous funding from Christine Meleo Bernstein and Armyan Bernstein, the Danielson Foundation, Karyn Kohl and Silas Dilworth, Leslie and Bill McMorrow, Susan Bay Nimoy and Leonard Nimoy, Mark Sandelson and Nirvana Bravo, Jiwon and Steven Song, and Darren Star. Additional support is provided by Sarah Arison, the Danish Arts Foundation, Jeffrey Deitch, the Knox Foundation, the Korea Foundation, Maurice Marciano Family Foundation, Marla and Jeffrey Michaels, Graham Steele and Ulysses de Santi, Ben Weyerhaeuser, Ann Soh Woods, and an anonymous donor.
Per Los Angeles City ordinance, proof of COVID-19 full vaccination and valid photo ID is required upon entry into the Hammer Museum. Read the Hammer’s full COVID-19 safety guidelines at their website.
Parking is available under the museum. Rates are $7 for the first three hours with museum validation, and $3 for each additional 20 minutes, with a $20 daily maximum. There is a $7 flat rate after 6 p.m. on weekdays, and all day on weekends.
BSAC’s “Riddem, Esoteric Rambunction & Eclectic Blue Cheer Conduction #2” is presented by USC’s Visions and Voices and co-sponsored by the Center for Black Cultural and Student Affairs. This performance is in collaboration with the Hammer Museum at UCLA, which will be hosting “Cosmic Riddem, Esoteric Rambunction & Eclectic Blue Cheer – Conduction #4” on Tuesday, March 8.
Tommy’s Place, USC’s underground concert venue, is located in the Ronald Tutor Campus Center; featuring concerts, comedy shows, sports screenings, trivia, karaoke and more. It’s also connected to Traditions Bar and Grill. Tommy’s Place is for all ages and open to the public. All shows are free.
To enter the USC campus, all guests age 12 and older must show proof of full vaccination (either a physical CDC-issued vaccine card or a digital copy available from the State of California here). As an alternative, guests may show a negative COVID-19 PCR test taken in the past 72 hours. Photo ID required. All persons must also complete a Trojan Check, USC’s daily wellness assessment, on the day of their visit. Medical grade masks (surgical masks, N95, KN95, or KF94) are required for all vaccinated attendees at indoor events.
Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute (WMI) today announced that self-described “territory band, neo-tribal thang, community hang” Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber (BSAC) will lead a free workshop for six rising musicians, ages 18-35, from March 31-April 3, 2022, as part of the Hall’s ongoing series of workshops and master classes for young professional musicians. The BSAC workshop will focus on the group’s approach to “Conduction,” also known as conducted improvisation, coined, constructed, and championed by Butch Morris.
BSAC who “continues to celebrate never playing anything the same way once” will aim to enhance the selected musicians interpretive and decision-making abilities by expanding their concept of composition, orchestration and arrangement in real-time; while delving deep into the connective tissue binding “Conduction” to jazz, rock, funk, twentieth-century composition, and African music in a lyrical, exploratory and improvisational manner.
The residency culminates with BSAC’s “Cosmic Riddem, Esoteric Rambunction & Eclectic Blue Cheer~Conduction #5 as the workshop participants and musicians of Burnt Sugar perform an original conduction in Zankel Hall on April 3, 2022. BSAC’s residency is presented as part of Carnegie Hall’s citywide Afrofuturism festival. Applications for the free workshop are now open online and must be submitted by February 11, 2022.
About Carnegie Hall‘sWorkshops and Master Classes
Artists on the rise are given valuable access to world-class performers and composers through free workshops and master classes for young professional musicians (ages 18-35), created by Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute (WMI). Participants are selected after responding to an open call for auditions. These up-and coming musicians receive personal coaching and mentoring from leading artists, helping them to reach their artistic and professional goals. Previous workshops and master classes presented by WMI have featured Joyce DiDonato, Renée Fleming, Marilyn Horne, Zakir Hussain, Abdullah Ibrahim, Bobby McFerrin, Brad Mehldau, Paquito d’Rivera, and more celebrated artists across multiple genres.
About Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute
Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute (WMI) creates visionary programs that embody Carnegie Hall’s commitment to music education, playing a central role in fulfilling the Hall’s mission of making great music accessible to as many people as possible. With unparalleled access to the world’s greatest artists, WMI’s programs are designed to inspire audiences of all ages, nurture tomorrow’s musical talent, and harness the power of music to make a meaningful difference in people’s lives. An integral part of Carnegie Hall’s concert season, these programs facilitate creative expression, develop musical skills and capacities at all levels, and encourage participants to make lifelong personal connections to music.
The Weill Music Institute generates new knowledge through original research and is committed to giving back to its community and the field, sharing an extensive range of online music education resources and program materials for free with teachers, orchestras, arts organizations, and music lovers worldwide. More than 800,000 people each year engage in WMI’s programs through national and international partnerships, in New York City schools and community settings, and at Carnegie Hall with many more taking part online. This includes more than half a million students and teachers worldwide who participate in WMI’s Link Up music education program for students in grades 3 through 5, made possible through Carnegie Hall partnerships with more than 115 orchestras in the US, as well as internationally in New Zealand, Canada, China, Japan, Kenya, and Spain.
Lead support for workshops and master classes is provided by Beatrice Santo Domingo, and Mr. & Mrs. Anthony B. Evnin and A.E. Charitable Foundation.
Workshops and master classes are made possible, in part, by Mr. & Mrs. Nicola Bulgari.
Beloveds, We’re broken hearted to confirm that this mourning, the morning of Tuesday, December 7th, 2021, Gregory Stephen Ionman Tate passed on to the next life.
At this time, out of respect for his sister Geri, his brother Brian, his daughter Chinara, and his “Grand Sun“ Nile, The Burnt Sugar Arkestra Family will refrain from further comment till the Tate Family has officially spoken.
The BSAC Family greatly appreciates the outpouring of love and reverent reflection expressed towards Greg on this very, very sad day.
This Fall, Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber debuts Angels Over Oakanda, a four-song suite which is the group’s first new studio-generated album of original material since 2017’s All You Zombies Dig The Luminosity. The album is being released on CD and as a digital download by Avant Groidd Musica September 23, 2021 with a 12” vinyl release to follow in 2022. (Edit, February2024 – now available on vinyl!)
Founded by Village Voice icon/Black Rock Coalition founder Greg “Ionman” Tate (who served as a commentator in the Summer of Soul documentary) and co-led with Dayton, Ohio monster groove bassist Jared Michael Nickerson (Bernie Worrell, The The, WadadaLeo Smith, Katell Keineg and Melvin Van Peebles, etc.), Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber is a forum for New York City’s improvisational musicians to compose, record, and perform an eclectic range of music.
Angels Over Oakanda is a unique body of compositions that draws upon the high bar of creativity and musicianship within the ensemble in unprecedented ways.
The opening track, which gives the album its name, was recorded in Brooklyn with a full complement of the current gigging and touring Burnt Sugar instrumental band.
Activating a 140 bpm groove-loop by Tate for its rhythmic and ‘ill-bient’ foundation, the group launches on a dizzying 18-minute journey of extemporaneous conjuration — one directed and disciplined under Tate’s baton by their seasoned deployment of their late sensei Lawrence Butch Morris’ Conduction System for Ensemble, practicing what Ornette Coleman called ‘The Art of the Improvisors.’
The players in the room on that audacious day were Lewis Flip Barnes TRUMPET; Avram Fefer ALTO SAX; V. Jeffrey Smith TENOR SAX; Moist Paula BARITONE SAX; Ben Tyree & André Lassalle ELECTRIC GUITARS; Leon Gruenbaum FENDER RHODES; Jared Michael Nickerson ELECTRIC BASS & PERCUSSION; Greg Gonzalez DRUMS & PERCUSSION; Shelley Nicole PERCUSSION.
Supplemental compositional material was later developed in the home studios of V. Jeffrey Smith TENOR & SOPRANO SAX; and Satch Hoyt FLUTE and worked into the final mix.
Next on this EP is a 12-minute Beat-and-Bass remix variation of the Oakanda suite entitled ‘Repatriation of the Midnight Moors’, produced, composed and arranged by longtime Burnt Sugar guest drummer and arrangement collaborator, Marque Gilmore tha’ Inna•Most. ‘Repatriation’ is remix #2 extracted from a 5-track, 41-minute ReMiX MiXTaPe Suite of its own.
Gilmore has a relationship with several Burnt Sugar members that goes back to the formative years as a founder-member of the Black Rock Coalition in 80s and 90s Gotham. Brother Gilmore drew on discrete musical elements and thematic impulses of Angel’s long-form version to create a wholly original work — one which distills the artist’s deep history in Cambridge, as a teen in his father Marvin Gilmore’s reggae-centric club The Western Front, then later in New York with the BRC-massive, his 14-year stint in London being a pioneering member of its Black Poetic and Drum’n’Basscommunities from the mid- 90s (alongside such now well-known UK literary pillars as Roger Robinson and Malaika B), along with his journeyman tenure with Joe Zawinul in the post-millennial oughts, through to his decade of contributions to the touring ensemble and Grammy nominations for his production work with Cuban pianist Omar Sosa.
About ‘Repatriations’ Gilmore has this to say:
I am truly humbled and honored each and every time I am invited as a guest artist with Burnt Sugar, and even with my Acousti-Lectric drum-arrangement infusions, I have YET to hold that Dang-Blessed BATON! So, I created a full-length remix suite entitled: “The Reconstru-Ducted Repatriation Road-Rage ReMiXeS” – Based on my Live-Remix production style (preserving an artist’s live performances and ensemble instrumentation), I basically re-conducted the entire Oakanda affair digitally and created the beat-structures and harmonic production utilizing the combined sciences of Archeo-Astronomy and ancient Sumerian time-keeping (hence, the 12-minute remix of ‘Midnight Moors’) connected to Vibez on the long road ahead in The Struggle with contemporary BLM-based activist thought in the titles and text. Thank You, BSAC!
The suite’s third iteration, ‘Oakanda Overdrive’ is the free-bopping, chamber-ensemble-approached, sonic-groidd child of Jared Michael Nickerson. This composition features Jared’s supernatural bass virtuosity, chopped & screwed reed-section scribe and ‘Black Moses’ arrangement savvy, along with the solo horn prowess of V. Jeffrey Smith in whose ‘lab’, JamcarverStudios, the composition was inculcated.
Smith, a co-founder of The Family Stand, is also a co-composer of their international hit ‘Ghetto Heaven’; and is known for his tenor playing on all of Billy Ocean’s Eighties hits including the Grammy-award-winning-number-one-Billboard-charting-classic ‘Caribbean Queen’, which also shows up frequently on lists giving love to the greatest sax solos in pop music history.
Nickerson and his bass have toured with Bernie Worrell, Katel Keineg, The The, Wadada Leo Smith, Catie Curtis, Marshall Crenshaw and Melvin Van Peebles with a recording portfolio that includes Grammy-nominated Charlie Musselwhite’s ‘Sanctuary’, Freedy Johnston’s 1992 Robert Christgau dubbed “a perfect album” ‘Can You Fly’ and Gary Lucas’ first Gods & Monsters release.
The suite’s finalé, ‘Lisala Over inna-Oakanda’ is a collaboration between longtime Burnt Sugar vocalist Lisala Beatty, (described by V. Jeffrey Smith as ‘’the last of the real red hot soul singers’’) and Greg Tate, who generated the lyrics. Lisala was given the bulk of the Oakanda recordings and rough mixes to vibe with and chose to snag the first 3-minutes of Gilmore’s ‘Repatriation’ to flex Tate’s lyrics over. Subsequently, Gilmore adapted the instrumental arrangement to support Lisala’s heavenly vocal flow while also, at Tate’s most-welcomed rhythmic request, created an alternate version with additional Drumz that comprises the advance-release single.
About his lyrics Tate says, ‘’The verses pay an abstract homage to the ghost-lineage of American born Black radical artists and activists — from those of the transatlantic trafficked who sustained their humanity and mind, body soul throughout that 90-day ‘’Auschwitz on the water’’ (per Arthur Jafa) horror-show, to the Maroon communities of Black and Indigenous freedom fighters of Florida who created free nation-states in fugitivity, fighting off the US Army for 30 years (at the height of chattel slavery, and beyond), to the 60’s modern warrior formations of the Freedom Riders, The Black Panther Party, Black Liberation Army, The Black Arts Movement (led by Amiri Baraka), and the Republic of New Africa who helped free Assata Shakur.
Lisala took Tate’s stark lines and gave them a buoyant melodicism, at once “anthemic, aspirational, spiritual, operatic, and Afro-Angelical.’’
FYI: There will be a second and third release of remixes and extrapolative extensions of Angels Over Oakanda by Burnt Sugar on the horizon…
Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber would like to thank Steve Baczkowski, Ed Cardoni, HALLWALLS Contemporary Art Center & The .9Mile Collaborative for presenting Nicole Mitchell, Mazz Swift, Charles Gayle, Henry Grimes and The Brotzmann/Parker/Drake Trio’s 2020 commissioned & archival digital performances for their “Sonic Vault” Series. We are thrilled to be included amongst this cadre of esteemed Artists with a streaming presentation of archival video featuring our 2013 Residency at Hallwalls.
On the 1st evening of the residency, we performed in the 9th Ward & featured music created in the moment using Lawrence D. “Butch” Morris’ Conduction® system for conducted improvisation. The video features music from that evening along with some post-concert discussion with Greg Tate about the influence Butch had on the group as well as some footage from a workshop at Buffalo Academy for Visual and Performing Arts.
The Arkestra: Greg ‘Ionman’ Tate – conduction, electronics Mikel ’Spirithood’ Banks – vocals, freak-a-phone, conduction Shelley Nicole – vocals Lewis ‘Flip’ Barnes – trumpet V. Jeffrey Smith – tenor saxophone ‘Moist’ Paula Henderson – baritone saxophone Ben Tyree – electric guitar Chris Eddleton – drums Jared Michael Nickerson – electric bass
