Monday, July 17, 2006

Sugar doesn't have to be sweet

I've seen Burnt Sugar classed as an extension of the kind of stuff Miles Davis did with his electric music, but "More than Posthuman: The Rise of the Mojosexual Cotillion" makes me think of Horace Silver's wonderful '70s set piece "The United States of Mind," for a new more angry and less hopeful millennium (so far) with an updated, harsher funk groove, interludes of hip-hop, sound theater using both instruments and voices and spiced by free jazz. Intricate and powerful and, heck, you could even dance to some of it. Maybe what this group really represents is a 21st Century big band that sounds like it. I am turned on by its music in any event.

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