the Cooper Union School of Art Interdisciplinary Seminar
Video
Greg Tate
JAMES BROWN LIVE + JAMES BROWN LIVE VERSUS BURNT SUGAR MOSH-UP
This lecture took place on April 12th, 2010 at 6:30 pm in the Wollman Auditorium at the Cooper Union
Lecture introduction
Greg Tate will read from his work in progress, James Brown’s Body and the Revolution of the Mind (Riverhead Press 2011). He will also perform some laptop driven transmutations of James Brown’s music with a few select members of the big band, Burnt Sugar. Burnt Sugar will also be doing a residency and performing two nights of James Brown’s music at the legendary Apollo Theatre in October.
About Greg Tate
Greg Tate was a Staff Writer at The Village Voice from 1987-2005. 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.
His published interviews include dialogues with Miles Davis, George Clinton, Richard Pryor, Carlos Santana, Lenny Kravitz, Sade, Erykah Badu, Wayne Shorter, Joni Mitchell, Lisa Bonet, Samuel R Delany, Ice Cube, Dexter Gordon, Betty Carter, King Sunny Ade, Chuck D of Public Enemy, Cassandra Wilson, Jill Scott, Wynton Marsalis, Branford Marsalis, Ornette Coleman, Henry Threadgill and Vernon Reid of Living Colour.
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, Wangechi Mutu, Jean Michel Basquiat, Ellen Gallagher, Kehinde Wiley and Ramm El Zee.
His books include writing for Martin Dixon’s photo-essay collection Brooklyn Kings--New York City’s Black Bikers (Powerhouse Books, 2001 ), Everything But The Burden: What White People Are Taking From Black Culture (Harlem Moon/Random House, 2003), Midnight Lightning: Jimi Hendrix and The Black Experience (Acapella/Lawrence Hill, 2003); Flyboy In The Buttermilk, Essays on American Culture (Simon and Shuster, 1993). Next year Duke University Press will publish Flyboy 2: The Greg Tate Reader. He is now working on a book about the Godfather of soul, James Brown, for Riverhead Press. The working title is James Brown’s Body and the Revolution of the Mind.
His play My Darling Gremlin (with live music score by Lawrence Butch Morris) was produced at Aaron Davis Hall in 1993 and at The Kitchen in 1995. His short feature sci-fi film Black Body Radiation was self-produced, written and directed in 2006. In the mid 90s he also collaborated on the librettoes for Juluis Hemphill’s opera Long Tongues (Apollo Theatre Production) and for Leroy Jenkins’ Fresh Faust, (Boston ICA Production).
Tate is musical director for the 13 to 35-plus member conducted-improvisation ensemble Burnt Sugar, The Arkestra Chamber. The band regularly performs in Europe, Canada and the United States. Burnt Sugar has released 15 albums on their own TruGROID imprint since 1999.
Their recordings and live performances have won them enthusiastic acclaim from Rolling Stone, Downbeat, The Wire, The Village Voice, Straight No Chaser,Signal To Noise and The New York Times. They can be reached via http://www.myspace.com and http://www.burntsugarindex.com.
In February 2010 Burnt Sugar went to Paris to be the pit band for Melvin Van Peeble’s operatic restaging of his film Sweet Sweetback’s Badass Song.