Founded by Village Voice icon Greg "Ionman" Tate and co-led with monster groove bassist Jared Michael Nickerson since 1999, Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber can bring one group of players and perform the songbooks of Miles, Steely Dan, Melvin Van Peebles, Bowie, James Brown, Sun Ra, Prince, Fleetwood Mac along with selections from their fourteen-release-strong personal catalog. The Burnt Sugar Arkestra “special ingredients” are their prodigious chops which cover a wide swath of the experimental soul-jazz-avant rock & hip hop spectrum and the utilization of Butch Morris's "Conduction System" to create new music within those well known song structures, or … with a hand signal or baton gesture … create brand new scripted-sounding improvisational musical structures in real time. This very accom­plished crew has play­ing cred­its that range from Melvin Van Pee­bles, TV On The Radio, Toshi Reagon, DJ Logic, Gary Lucas, Tamar Kali, Phish, William Parker, Liz Wright, The Holmes Broth­ers, Wadada Leo Smith, The The, David Mur­ray, Billy Ocean and Living Colour’s Vernon Reid. David Fricke of Rolling Stone calls them “a multiracial jam army that freestyles with cool telekinesis between the lustrous menace of Miles Davis’ On The Corner, the slash-and-om of 1970s King Crimson, and Jimi Hendrix’ moonwalk across side three of Electric Ladyland.”

Featuring:

• Mikel Banks - vocals/harmonica/flute/freak-a-phone
• Shelley Nicole - vocals
• JS Williams - trumpet
• V Jeffrey Smith - flute/alto & tenor sax
• Ben Tyree - guitar
• Leon Gruenbaum - keyboards
• Jared Michael Nickerson - electric bass
• LaFrae Sci - drums

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