Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares

Founded in 1999 by the late Greg Tate and led by bassist Jared Michael Nickerson, the 9-piece Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber freely juggles a wide swath of the experimental soul-jazz-hip hop spectrum, reflecting the breadth of American music in the 21st century. The group honors its deepest inspirations, the first post-modernists of American music – Duke Ellington, Sun Ra, Parliament Funkadelic and The Art Ensemble of Chicago. Burnt Sugar will perform at The Drake in Amherst. We will partner with the Creative Music Gathering to have band members work with local musicians to expose them to Butch Morris’s conduction system, which is integral to the work of Burnt Sugar. With the help of Amherst Media, we will record and post an interview with band members about the legacy of the iconic cultural critic Greg Tate and the 25 year history of Burnt Sugar. Working with the Archive Project, we will videotape the concert and include it in Special Collections of the DuBois Library at UMass.