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
Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber Presents Fourteen Dollars & Fifty Cents Featuring Abby Dobson. From “Porgy and Bess: The Astro Black Trapfish Row Variations” Performed live at David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center on January 30, 2020.
BSAC would especially like to thank our Biggest Fan in Italia Achille Silipo, the Associazione Culturale Punta Giara’s Basilio Antonio Sulis & Paolo Sodde for proposing we “caramelize” Porgy and Bess, and BSAC’s Second Biggest Italia Fan … Italian National Rai Radio 3’s Pino Saulo for commissioning, nationally-broadcasting and waxing poetically regarding our “Porgy & Bess: The Trapfish Row Variations” world debut performance:
“Listening/watching Burnt Sugar playing live is an intense, amazing experience. The passionate, playful, committed way each artist interacts with the others, their deep respect both for the music and for the other members of the band is a show in itself. A band of equals, where every single unique note is part of the game. If there existed a place where Sun Ra’s Arkestra would meet George Clinton’s Funkadelic/Parliament it’s there you will find Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber.” ~ Pino Saulo of Rai Radio 3 / ITALY
Stateside the BSAC Crew would like to express our gratitude and appreciation for Andrew Miller at the Kennett Flash in Kennett Square PA and Jordana Leigh, Viviana Benitez and Shade Adeyemo at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts David Rubinstein Atrium for respectively curating a “TFRV” workshop and our U.S. debut and lastly and warmly the Sardegna e Jazz, Kennett Flash and David Rubinstein Atrium Stage & Sound Crews and respective attending Audiences.
BURNT SUGAR THE ARKESTRA CHAMBER (Trapfish Row Edition) Greg Tate: Electric Guitar & Conduction * Shelley Nicole ~ Abby Dobson ~ Julie Brown ~ Mikel Banks: Vocals & Conduction * Horns – Satch Hoyt: Flute, Hand & Electronic Percussion & Conduction ~ V. Jeffrey Smith: Alto & Tenor Saxes & Conduction ~ Avram Fefer: Tenor Sax ~ ‘Moist’ Paula Henderson: Bari Sax * Rhythm Section – Leon Gruenbaum: Synthesizer, Samchillian & Conduction ~ Ben Tyree: Electric Guitar & Conduction ~ André Lassalle: Electric Guitar ~ Marque “Inna Most” Gilmore; Electronic & Trap Drums & Conduction ~ Jared Michael Nickerson: Electric Bass.
Live Sound Engineering: Dorian Mancuso Audio Enhancement: V. Jeffrey Smith Videography: Daryl Tillman Editing & Design: Amy Gail
Lyrics: chopped & screwed by Greg Tate from the Porgy & Bess Libretto. (DuBose Heyward & Ira Gershwin) Arrangement: Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber
Arriving on the other side of this pandemic and it’s aftershocks is going to be a marathon. BSAC would like to suggest the only way to win will be as a compassionately united Human Race.
