SAUGERTIES, N.Y. – November 15, 2025 – Sheets of rain mercilessly hammered my windshield as the wipers worked in overdrive to preserve my view. The shadow-soaked highway, coupled with the erratic mist kicked up by sixteen-wheelers, presented a hellacious obstacle worthy of weathering on my way to Saugerties.
There, at The Local—a music, arts, and culture center—Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber, an American improvisational jazz band, was set to take the stage at 8 p.m. Confused, I arrived at a chapel at 7:30, wondering if I was at the right location. An A-frame sign out front confirmed I was correct, followed by personable door greeters who swiftly checked my ticket and kindly reassured me.
Inside, it’s intimate yet open, decorated with modern minimalist chandeliers and gothic-style oak arch beams framing the beige plaster walls, accented by acoustic panels and tall, narrow stained-glass lancet windows. These windows looked down upon the spectators as colorful, swirling star patterns were projected across them, radiating the aura of a cosmic night sky.
About 60 foldable chairs, along with two sofas 70% filled, were lined and centered in front of the instrument-littered stage. Surrounding it was a minibar and a merchandise stand in the back corner selling vinyl, CDs, and T-shirts. As I took my seat in the second row on the left side, I noticed band members making their way in and out from backstage to tune their instruments, while anxious fans clouded the room with muffled chatter, and jazz music crept through the speakers.
At 8:04, the lights dimmed, and by 8:06, the eleven-person band graced the stage to welcoming whistles and applause. The charismatic bandleader, Bruce Mack, set the tone with his resonant, fine-aged voice, met by melting chimes that ignited the start of their set. The stage became veiled in a luminous orange, and at once, the band exhaled a boom that shook the room with a rhythmic magnitude that force-fed the ears an eclectic flair.
In an instant, I was engulfed in a vortex that dropped me back to the winter of 2017, when I inhaled the hallucinogenic billow of Colorado’s Blackwater Kush, sending the shapes and patterns in inanimate objects into a waltzing, pulsing, twirling dance—defying the eyes with a majestic mirage once perceived as home. The only difference now was that I felt grounded in the sands of Wakanda, absorbing the vigor of Afrofuturism through vibranium-rich gems layered within their improvisational intensity.
Faces within the crowd were lost in a trance—heads nodding in a drug-induced hypnosis, eyes wide shut. Bodies danced, hands clapped and snapped, while others sang along. Bruce then turned his back to the crowd and raised his baton, carving patterns into the air with the regal finesse of a wizard. This incited the soul-stirring vocals of Abby Dobson, whose flamboyant name-plated hoop earrings reflected a heavenly glimmer—a decadent delight that further elevated the presence of the accompanying vocalist, Miss Olithea, the poised lioness whose beautifully animated vocal instrument channels an experimental spirit that serenades the biorhythms with a slow-burning depth.
With elegance, they transitioned into the polar opposite yet equally fervent energy of “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane, followed by “Respect” by Aretha Franklin. These guys have a unique ability to make iconic songs completely their own, which only places their originals on an even higher pedestal. Sonic lasers shot from the keyboard, paving the way for a robotic vocal solo from pianist Leon Gruenbaum, reminiscent of Zapp and Roger’s electro-funk. Not a single motion was expected, yet everything was accepted, as their communal chants about gentrification and high rent unified the crowd with an energy resembling both a festival and a rally.
The feeling of togetherness was unwavering, and just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, guitarist Ben Tyree shredded his strings with a Hendrix-esque detonation, leading to a finish that punched my soul with the honeyed swagger of Rick James and the Stone City Band. The late Greg Tate would be proud that the nearly 30-year-old machine is still in full swing! And after the show, I was blessed with the opportunity to meet the band’s Grammy-nominated bassist, Jared Michael Nickerson, who granted me an impactful sit-down backstage.
RRX: Because the Arkestra thrives on conduction and intuition, there must be moments where everyone taps into the same unspoken thread. How would you describe that state of shared consciousness?
Jared Michael Nickerson: It’s a lovely thing. Even with composed music, I always tell people that they don’t really hear the best versions of songs when they see bands in the stadium or on stage in the club. The best version of those songs happens in the rehearsal room, when everybody just finally gets a feel for their part. And then they have a hold of their part enough that they can listen to the rest of the players in the band. And then that’s when the melding gets—and when that first magical moment happens, that first take happens where everybody’s on the same page—that’s done and gone.
With Burnt Sugar, every take is a new take. We can play the same songbook, but it still would be different because it would be conducted different, there might be different players, it could be a different tempo, people might approach it differently. So it’s always fresh.
RRX: Improvisation can be pure freedom, but Burnt Sugar works with a kind of sculpted chaos. How do you personally distinguish between freedom that elevates the music and freedom that fractures it?
JMN: We have no control over that. Because sometimes it does fracture. It’s not guaranteed to elevate. Which means when it does elevate, it’s all the more special. And the great thing about it is it’s a shared experience with the audience. Because as it’s new to the audience, it’s also new to the band. So it’s new for everyone. So when it finally hits—you know when you see somebody, you hear some music, and it just kind of like hits you the right way and you just get really happy or really get, you know, metaphysically involved in it? Well, that happens with Burnt Sugar, that happens with everybody, the band and the audience.
And then it can also fall on its face. It can also be a complete disaster. And, you know, we just chalk it up to that’s a possibility. But even in that, there’s beauty in that because there will be something in that disaster that was very musical.
RRX: The music carries so many diasporan echoes that it often feels ancestral. When you play, do you feel like you’re channeling something older than yourself, or crafting something entirely new in the moment?
JMN: I think it’s both. I think all the knowledge that are under people’s fingers and in their voices and in their hands basically comes from the ancestors, because we all learn from mimicking those performers before we can actually find our own voice. But now a lot of these players have found their own voice, so they have all that experience, that ancestral-like experience with them that comes out sounding like them, but you can still hear little, you know, swatches of like—I mean, like, this sounds a little bit like James Jamerson, but this sounds a little bit like Coltrane, like Eric Gale, or Cornell Dupree, you know, things like that, Rick Wakeman, you know, stuff like that.
But it’s really the actual player. And then it’s just—you see, Greg actually attracted, I don’t know of another band that has the type of personality that we have, the adventurous … I mean, it’s really something where you can get people who are comfortable going out in public on stage and making up something right there on the spot.
You know, a lot of bands play tunes that they’ve played, you know, 60 or 70 times in rehearsal, and they pretty much just come out and just regurgitate what they—it’s almost like they could be robots. And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, because a lot of people, sometimes people come and they want to hear the hits, and they want to hear the hits exactly the way that they—the record they purchased or whatever, you know, like that. And so that’s that crowd. But we don’t do that. We don’t do that. If we give you a hit, it’s going to be the way we feel that it should be.
RRX: With Greg Tate’s vision and the band’s history in mind, what does legacy mean to you when the art itself refuses to stay still?
JMN: Something we can’t control. I mean, the beauty of the art is that it is a living creature. You know, it’s always moving somewhere. It could be moving backwards. Like, you know, sometimes things will—you’ll get those viral flashes. So like, let’s go back to the ’80s. Or let’s go back to, you know, the New Edition period and get into the boy bands, dancing bands. Or, you know, right now I think there’s like even like some fervor for like people revisiting Grand Funk Railroad and that whole kind of thing, you know, the Vanilla Fudge and all that. I mean, it’s always going to go back and forth.
The thing is—are you flexible enough to … well, first of all, are you strong enough to have an identity that sticks out while all this is being pulled back and forth, so that when people hear you, they know it’s you regardless of what you’re playing? And I think Burnt Sugar has that.