Mark,
That looks similar to mine except I can't find any black on the trunk of the tree. A gentleman was kind enough to give me some dithane-M45 at the local garden center and said it should do the trick. So I sprayed the tree yesterday and will follow up with another application a week from now. I'm curious, can you scrape away the top layer where the black is and still see green underneath? At first glance, I thought I could simply scrape the black stuff off of my branch (like a sooty mold) but it appears to be just above the cambium layer so you have to peel the outer bark off a bit. This has me convinced that my tree has a fungus. As I look closer at the image you posted, it almost looks like a sunburn.
I'll take another photo of my branch in a week before I do the second application and see if there is an improvement. It will be interesting to follow the results.
Regards,
Will