Author: Burnt Sugar

A Primer In How Sisters Freely Conduct Themselves in The D

Featuring Mazz Swift and Latasha Nevada Diggs on violin,vocals and EFX Greg Tate on laptop,guitars+baton, Jared Michael Nickerson on bass and The Next Detroit Harmolodic Arkestra (Joel Peterson, Duminie Deporres, James “the Blackman” Harris, Skeeter CR Shelton and more)
Admission: $8.00 all ages

www,mocadetroit.org/upcomingevents.html

DETROIT – On November 5th, 2010 the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit will introduce Burnt Sugar to Detroit. Burnt Sugar is an improvising, experimental jazz/funk/soul orchestra conducted by Greg Tate out of New York City. On this special occasion they will be accompanied by some of Detroit’s finest players, hand-picked just for this performance to perform as a group with the Burnt Sugar crew.

Greg Tate – Conductor/Electric guitar
Greg Tate was a Staff Writer at The Village Voice from 1987-2003. His writings on culture and politics have also been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Artforum, Rolling Stone, VIBE, Premiere, Essence, Suede, The Wire, One World, Downbeat, and JazzTimes. He was recently acknowledged by The Source magazine as one of the ‘Godfathers of Hiphop Journalism’ for his groundbreaking work on the genre’s social, political, economic and cultural implications in the period when most pundits considered it a fad. Tate has also written for the Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum, ICA Boston, ICA London, Museum of Contemporary Art Houston, The Studio Museum In Harlem, The Gagosian Gallery, Deitch Projects and the Tate Museums London and Liverpool. His writing about visual art includes monographs and essays about Chris Ofili. Wengechi Mutu, Jean Michel Basquiat, Ellen Gallagher, Kehinde Wiley and Ramm El Zee.

Latasha N. Nevada Diggs – Effected Vocals & Soundscapes
is a writer, vocalist, sound artist, author of three chapbooks, Ichi-Ban and Ni-Ban (MOH Press), Manuel is destroying my bathroom (Belladonna Press), and the album, Televisíon. Her work has been published in Rattapallax, Black Renaissance Noir, Nocturnes, Spoken Word Revolution Redux, The Black Scholar, P.M.S, Jubilat, Everything But the Burden, and Muck Works to name a few. As a vocalist and poet, she has worked with many artists including Vernon Reid, Akilah Oliver, Mike Ladd, Butch Morris, Gabri Christa, Ali Jackson, Shelley Hirsch, Burnt Sugar, Edwin Torres, Elliot Sharp, Mendi + Keith Obadike, Bernard Lang, Vijay Iyer, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Towa Tei, and Guillermo E. Brown. She has received scholarships, residencies, and fellowships from Cave Canem, Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center, Naropa Institute, Caldera Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts (2003/2009), the Eben Demarest Trust, Harlem Community Arts Fund, Rockefeller Brothers Foundation, the Barbara Deming Memorial Grant for Women, and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. As an independent curator and director, LaTasha has curated and produced several events with The Black Rock Coalition Orchestra. A native of Harlem, LaTasha is a 2010 Jerome Foundation Travel and Study recipient.

Jared Michael Nickerson – Electric Bass
Born in Cleveland Ohio and raised in Dayton Ohio Jared starting playing bass in high school talent shows as part of the legendary Dayton funk scene which spawned the Ohio Players, Slave, Roger Troutman and Zapp, Sun, Dayton, Steve Arrington’s Hall of Fame, Faze-O and members of Heatwave. As a free lancer Jared has played with The Roots, Marc Anthony Thompson, Catie Curtis, John Paul Bourelly, The Raybeats and Katell Keineg. He has recorded and toured with England’s The The, led by Matt Johnson, Bernie Worrell, Wadada Leo Smith, Freedy Johnston, Vernon Reid (solo) and with The Yohimbe Brothers (Vernon Reid & DJ Logic), Gary Lucas’s Gods and Monsters, and Tammy Faye Starlite and the Angels of Mercy. Jared co-wrote a tune, recorded and toured with blues great Charlie Musselwhite in support of “Sanctuary,” on Peter Gabriel’s Real World label. This CD found itself on numerous critic top ten lists at the end of the year and also received a Grammy nomination for best blues recording in 2004.

Mazz Swift – Violin & Vocals
At the age of 12, violinist, composer and singer Mazz Swift made her performance debut at Alice Tully Hall in New York City, performing alongside members of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. She later attended the Juilliard School of Music and studied with Stephen Clapp. Since leaving in her third year to pursue a more organic approach to music making, she has performed and recorded with artists of all kinds including Perry Farrell, Dee Snider, Moby, Vernon Reid and DJ Logic (The Yohimbe Bros.), William Parker, Whitney Houston, Kanye West, Common and Jay-Z. She is NYC-based, where she divides her time between various collaborative projects and her solo project: MazzMuse. For more info please visit www.MazzMuzik.com.

About the Detroit Players:

“The Blackman” – DJ
DJ and hype man for various musicians, including Kid Rock, Blackman has toured with Too Short, played in the instrumental funk band Soul Clique , is associated with Enemy Squad, and the P-Funk Unit. He runs the Black Hole in Highland Park, Michigan and is an artist and a painter.

Duminie Deporres – Guitar
Currently solo artist On Submerge/Electrofunk Recordings, A & R of Electrofunk , works currently with His own band 444 ,Mr De(DAY) Jessica Care Moore and House Legend Theo Parrish. Duminie has played and recorded with such pillars as Public Enemy, George Clinton, the Last Poets and many more. His latest effort is entitled 444.

Michael Carey – Horn
Michael Carey has been a creative jazz musician for over 35 years. He has worked musically in the Detroit/ Chicago area since the late seventies with many jazz musicians and groups. Lately, he has been working with Faruq Z. Bey and the Northwoods Improvisors.
Read more: http://www.myspace.com/tenormadness3#ixzz117yJFlcE

Djallo Djakate – Drummer
Music has been Djallo’s inspiration since he was a child.
“Growing up in Detroit has given me a chance to work with some great musicians. My teaching stems from the many diverse musical genres Detroit has to offer. Everything from, ragtime, be-bop, swing, blues, gospel, rhythm & blues, soul, funk, rock, fusion, reggae, avant-garde, Afro-Cuban, Brazilian, West African, New Orleans, and techno. “
http://www.myspace.com/djallodjakate

Joel Peterson – Acoustic Bass
Composer/musician Joel Peterson has 22 years of experience performing and teaching music. He has programmed music and art in Detroit for 16 years, including over 200 events a year at Bohemian National Home from 2005-2008. Peterson studied double-bass with Detroit Symphony Orchestra Principal Robert Gladstone and Dan Pliskow, as well as guitar with John Denome. He is a founding member of Immigrant Suns, Scavenger Quartet, Lac La Belle, Odu Afrobeat, Xenharmonic Gamelan and BoxDeserter. He has collaborated with Rhys Chatham, Eugene Chadbourne, Damo Suzuki, Faruq Z. Bey, Frank Pahl, Thollem McDonas, Tatsuya Nakatani, Steve Cohn, Amy Denio, Gino Robair, The Violent Femmes and many others.
www.myspace.com/bohemiannationalhome

Skeeter Shelton – Saxophone
Skeeter Shelton started playing saxophone at the age of nine. He studied and graduated from the United States School of Music for the Army, Navy and Marines from 1971 to 1972. He has played alongside many of jazz’s finest including: Joe Tex, Earl White Revue, James Carter, Wendell Harrison , and Hakim Jammi. He is currently a member of the New Day Blues Band, Visitors Band, Conspiracy Wind Ensemble, Street Band, Spectrum II, the 70th Division Army Reserve Band, and the Continental Jazz Sixtet.

Starting 2010 with three sold-out previews at Brooklyn’s BRICstudio & two sold-out nights in Paris at the Sons D’Hiver Festival as Melvin Van Peebles’ on-stage band for the theatrical debut of Sweet Sweetback’s Badasssss Song this past February, and preparing to mash-up James Brown’s songbook for the Apollo Theater’s Salon Series later this fall, Burnt Sugar finds itself at  92YTribeca with a chance to do what it does best…. freestyle!

Some of the players featured in this special session at 92YTribeca include:

Mikel Banks – conduction – vocals – freak-a-phone  (Jay Z – Roughstars – Marque Gilmore )
Justice Dilla X – vocals – storytelling
Derrin Maxwell – mc
Micah Gaugh – conduction – alto sax ( Arto Lindsay – Laraish Burnett – Apollo Heights)
Paula Henderson – bari-sax  (Gordon Gano – Gogol Bordello – TV on the Radio – Reverend Vince Anderson – Baja & the Dryed Eye Crew)
Andre Lassalle – guitar (Dee-Lite – Robert Randolph – Sophia Ramos – Vernon Reid – BRC Orchestra )
Bruce Mack – keys (Jorge Sylvester – Dean Bowman – Vernon Reid )
Jared Michael Nickerson – electric bass ( Wadada Leo Smith – The The – Freedy Johnston – Yohimbe Brothers – Charlie Musselwhite )
Oasim Naqvi – drums (DJ Rekha – The Loos Ensemble – Henry Wolfe – The Tate Liverpool)