Founded by monster bassist Jared Michael Nickerson and Village Voice icon Greg "Ionman" Tate in 1999, Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber is a sprawling band of musicians whose prodigious personnel allows to freely juggle a wide swath of the experimental soul-jazz-hip hop and rock spectrum. This very accomplished crew has playing credits that range from Toshi Reagon, Charlie Musselwhite, DJ Logic, Gary Lucas, TV On The Radio, Tamar Kali, Phish, William Parker, Liz Wright, The Holmes Brothers, Wadada Leo Smith, The The, David Murray, Joseph Bowie and Jay Z.
Burnt Sugar freely moves amongst many styles, eras and genres to devise its own exciting hybrids. These hybrids are based on a solid foundation of various musical traditions and the use of cutting-edge music technology. In this sense the group mission honors its deepest inspirations, the first post-modernists of American music – Duke Ellington, Sun Ra, Parliament Funkadelic and The Art Ensemble of Chicago.
Arkestra Conductor Greg Tate says, "Burnt Sugar got the nerve to claim Sly Stone, Morton Feldman, Billie Holiday, Jimi Hendrix and Jean Luc Ponty as progenitiors Our player-ranks include known Irish fiddlers, AACM refugees, Afro-punk rejects, unrepentant beboppers, feminist rappers, jitterbugging doowoppers, frankly loud funk-a-teers and rodeo stars of the digital divide."
Music must be heard – especially music designed to push back current musical boundaries. Burnt Sugar and TruGroid fill a major vacuum in terms of reestablishing a presence and profile for American experimental music on the world stage that is conversant with the idioms and recording techniques of hip hop, drum and bass, jazz and alternative rock. In today’s musical context there are few American bands like the Arkestra Chamber that are innovative on stage and in the recording studio.
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