POSTPONED Exhibition Workshop: The Truest Subversive Act
2020-03-28 06:00 - 08:30 (America/Chicago) | Crosstown Arts East Atrium, 1350 Concourse Avenue, Memphis, TN, United States
** This event is postponed until further notice.
This workshop is held in conjunction with the “STUDIOS” exhibition on view in the Crosstown Arts East Gallery.
Using Keiko Gonzalez’s work in “STUDIOS” as inspiration, participants will be encouraged to paint without a particular destination in mind. Drawing from Keiko’s style of “circular arguments that never seek literal translations,” participants will broaden their minds and expand on their own internal philosophies through the medium of painting. These pieces will be showcased in a pop-up gallery at the end of the exhibition.

POSTPONED Crosstown Arthouse presents Wild at Heart
2020-04-02 14:30 - 16:30 | Crosstown Theater, 1350 Concourse Ave., Memphis, TN, 38104, United States
** This event is postponed until further notice.
It’s probably enough just to say “David Lynch,” but let’s hit on some of Wild at Heart‘s high points, like the stars of the movie: Laura Dern (Foxes; Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains); Nicolas Cage (Valley Girl); Thrashers Powermad playing Elvis Presley; Diane Ladd (Laura Dern’s real-life mother) manically covering her face with lipstick; Crispin Glover (Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, River’s Edge) as Jingle Dale; Laura Dern’s cousin, who wants Christmas to be all year long and puts cockroaches in his own underwear; Harry Dean Stanton (Alien, Repo Man, Red Dawn) as Diane Ladd’s pathetic lover; Sherilyn Fenn (The Wraith, Two Moon Junction) in one the best and most traumatic Lynch car wreck scenes ever put to screen; Willem Dafoe (Streets of Fire, The Last Temptation of Christ) as Bobby Peru; a cameo by Laura Palmer herself (Sheryl Lee) as the Good Witch from the Wizard of Oz; Koko Taylor singing a song written by Lynch and composed by longtime collaborator Angelo Badalamenti; and CJack Nance (Eraserhead!!) as a random crazy dude with an invisible dog in a trailer park.
If the last time you saw Wild at Heart was at the Fare Four, you owe it to yourself to come see it again on the big screen at Crosstown Theater!
David Lynch/1990/124 minutes
The Crosstown Arthouse Film Series showcases a diverse collection of independent, international, historically significant, artistic, experimental, cult, underground and documentary features.
Films begin at 7:30 pm sharp at Crosstown Theater
Tickets are $5 (at the door only)

POSTPONED Bartlett High School Photography Show
2020-04-03 12:30 - 15:00 | TN
** This event is postponed until further notice.
Students from Bartlett High School will showcase their photography in a show and sale benefitting the high school’s photography program.
Photos will be available for sale for $20, and all proceeds will be used to purchase new supplies for photography class.
Free admission

POSTPONED Women of Folk: Xaris Waltman Trio & Bailey Bigger Band in The Green Room
2020-04-03 14:30 - 16:30 | Crosstown Arts, The Green Room, 1350 Concourse Ave., Suite 280, Memphis, TN, 38104, United States
** This event is postponed until further notice.
The Green Room at Crosstown Arts presents Women of Folk — performances by the Xaris Waltman Trio and Bailey Bigger Band.
Tickets: $10
Doors at 7 pm | Show at 7:30 pm
Born and raised in small-town Arkansas, just outside of the musically historic city of Memphis, Tennessee, Bailey has always had a passion for songwriting. She first picked up a guitar at only nine years old and began to write songs within the first week of playing.
At age 17, Bailey won “Memphis’ Best Song Of 2017” for her original song, “Wildflower.” Since then, she has performed at many festivals and venues from Celebrate Memphis (being one of 4 headliners), AmericanaFest, and many more. She has recorded at Dark Horse Studios, Sun Studios, and Ardent Studios. Bailey has also been recognized as a top ten up-and-coming Americana artist you should be listening to by Memphis Magazine.
Following Bailey’s first record “Closer to Home,” she released her second EP, “Between The Pages.” This EP was engineered by Jessica Willis and released by the University of Memphis record label, BlueTOMRecords.
Xaris Waltman’s mother claims she was humming tunes before she could talk. As a young child, Xaris picked up her dad’s guitar and discovered a deep connection to folk songs. Xaris loved how the songs had lives of their own and have been telling the same stories for generations. Xaris still feels the same way. Relaying these stories to audiences during her shows makes her feel like she’s doing something bigger than herself.
In 2019, at nineteen years old, Xaris released an album of old-time songs titled “Under The Willow” with BigTone Records. Right out of high school, Xaris began traveling the country solo; just a girl and her guitar. Playing listening rooms, living rooms, and festivals, she has captured the people of small-town America’s ears with her melodious, high-toned voice.

POSTPONED Exhibition Workshop: Generate
2020-04-04 06:00 - 08:30 | Crosstown Arts East Atrium, 1350 Concourse Avenue, Memphis, TN, United States
** This event is postponed until further notice.
This workshop is held in conjunction with the “STUDIOS” exhibition on view in the Crosstown Arts East Gallery.
Utilizing fabric, paper, paint, and other provided materials, participants will create art pieces inspired by Keiko Gonzalez’s abstractions on view in “STUDIOS.” These pieces will be showcased in a pop-up gallery at the end of the exhibition.

POSTPONED Kafé Kirk with special guest Dave Koz
2020-04-05 11:00 - 12:30, 2020-04-05 14:00 - 15:30 | Crosstown Theater, 1350 Concourse Ave., Memphis, TN, 38104, United States
** This event is postponed until further notice.
Join Grammy-winning saxophonist Kirk Whalum for Kafé Kirk, a monthly jazz series in Crosstown Theater featuring musical and spiritual collaborations with special guest artists. This month’s performance will feature saxophonist Dave Koz.
This show will feature two performances — a matinee at 4 pm and an evening show at 7 pm. VIP tickets will ONLY be available for the 4 pm performance.
General admission tickets, 4 pm — $50
VIP tickets (includes a meet-and-greet and free CD) — $70
Doors open at 3 pm for VIP and 3:30 pm for general seating | Show at 4 pm
*** VIP experience has been relocated to the black box of the theater. The VIP experience includes a signed copy of a Kirk Whalum CD and a meet-and-greet.
General admission tickets, 7 pm — $50
About Kirk Whalum:
Soulful, passionate, stirring … these are the words most often used to describe Kirk’s music. Forged from his Memphis gospel roots and his 1980s initiation into the thriving Houston nightclub scene, Kirk’s big, rich tenor sound is unmistakably his. The 80s were highlighted by Kirk’s stepping out of his blossoming sideman role and forming his own band. It was there that Kirk ultimately developed both his “voice” and songwriting in the crucible of the local club scene — especially at a rooftop club called Cody’s. It was also in Houston where jazz pianist Bob James “discovered” him and brought him on tour, which led to five successful albums with Columbia Records, including Cache, Kirk’s first No. 1 album. Kirk and Bob also received a Grammy nomination for their collaboration album, Joined at the Hip.
After moving to Los Angeles, Kirk became an in-demand session player for top artists like Barbara Streisand, Al Jarreau, Luther Vandross, Larry Carlton, Quincy Jones, and, most notably, Whitney Houston, amongst many others. It’s his sax heard on the mega-hit, “I Will Always Love You.” Kirk soon followed that career high point with his phenomenal hit album released on Warner Bros. Records, For You, perhaps the most successful of over 25 solo recordings to date. Others include his eclectic, and much-lauded, Gospel According to Jazz series (Chapters 1, 2, 3 and 4). In addition to his many solo projects, Kirk was also a member of the popular soul/jazz group, BWB, which features Kirk as the “W” of the group with Rick Braun (trumpet) and Norman Brown (guitar).
About Dave Koz:
In a recording career that spans nearly three decades, saxophonist Dave Koz has racked up an astoundingly impressive array of honors and achievements: nine GRAMMY® nominations, 11 No. 1 albums on Billboard’s Current Contemporary Jazz Albums chart, numerous world tours, 13 sold-out Dave Koz & Friends At Sea cruises, performances for multiple U.S. presidents, a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and appearances on a multitude of television shows, including “Good Morning America,” “The View,” “The Tonight Show,” “Entertainment Tonight,” and more. A Platinum-selling artist, Koz is also known as a humanitarian, entrepreneur, radio host, and instrumental music advocate.

POSTPONED Lynn Cardona in The Green Room
2020-04-08 14:30 - 16:30 | Crosstown Arts, The Green Room, 1350 Concourse Ave., Suite 280, Memphis, TN, 38104, United States
** This event is postponed until further notice.
Join us in The Green Room at Crosstown Arts for a performance by contemporary jazz and soul artist Lynn Cardona.
Lynn Cardona is a contemporary jazz and soul artist living in Los Angeles, where she pens unguarded songs about love: the unrequited, the returned and ecstatic, the slow burn of longing and lust.
Tickets: $10
Doors at 7pm | Performance at 7:30pm
Lynn Cardona is a contemporary jazz and soul artist living in Los Angeles, where she pens unguarded songs about love: the unrequited, the returned and ecstatic, the slow burn of longing and lust.
Tickets: $10
Doors at 7pm | Performance at 7:30pm
“[Ophelia] features an absolutely gorgeous and moving vocal performance, the best of this disc. “Don’t you know how far I’d go for love?”“
– Michael Doherty, Michael’s Music Log
“If jazz songs can be likened to paintings, then “Ophelia” is comprised of the most delicate execution of pointillism.”
– Dodie Miller Gould, Lemonwire
“In only three compelling, heart on her sleeve songs, gossamer voiced soul-jazz singer songwriter invites us into a fascinating interior world, where she’s unashamed to address suicidal thoughts and her slow emergence from a dark emotional time.”
– Jonathan Widran, JW Vibe
“Lynn Cardona introduces us to her rich voice and accessible songwriting skills.. Her dainty voice works well on the upbeat “A Little Too Late” and she can get vulnerable on the title track.”
– George Harris, Jazz Weekly
“Cardona drops an EP about various facets of love in the soul/jazz groove she’s been mining to good effect in the past. Her version of healing music, perhaps it will shine a light for others in the same situation.”
– Chris Spector, Midwest Record
It’s Cardona’s voice—girlish, dreamily viscous, and reminiscent of Blossom Dearie—that first draws you in. But you soon find yourself saturated in her world, one where nostalgia and desire fill the space like rising floodwaters.
Much of this is due to the poetry that patters through Cardona’s lyrics, tugging you deeper and deeper out to sea. For example, in her new EP, Ophelia, Cardona sings in the titular song, “I’ve said this all before but now I swear it, please dare it, don’t you know how far I’d go for love….” She wrote the song in a single night during which she found herself wanting to end her life after the dissolution of her relationship with a long-time lover. Despite the heaviness of the subject matter, “Ophelia” has a light-hearted feel, conveying the haunting juxtaposition between what’s felt and what’s shown on the outside.
Following the end of her relationship, Cardona moved around the world to Seoul, South Korea, to escape her memories. The other two songs on Ophelia, “A Little Too Late” and “Mother Earth” were written during this period of recovery.
“A Little Too Late” is a tribute to a fleeting but life-changing love affair with a man named Joe, whom she fell for shortly after her breakup and whom she credits as pulling her out of her dark depression. Cardona sings, “In just autumn when the leaves all beg the trees to let them go… Maybe he loved me because he let me go, but it’s a little too late,” about her brave decision to leave Joe behind and travel alone to South Korea in search of healing.
“Mother Earth” explores Cardona’s ambivalent feelings about the idea of becoming a mother. Ultimately, the song celebrates the resilience and nurturing that both Mother Earth and women embody despite the abuses of mankind.
Before her musical career, Cardona grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and moved to Memphis, Tennessee, shortly after graduating high school. Over the following decade, she cut her teeth performing in the southern city, where she learned from Memphis’ incredible musicians and artists. Eventually, after her stint in South Korea, she made her way to Los Angeles.
Cardona enlisted some of the top talent in Southern California to help her with this project. Produced by guitarist DORI AMARILIO, she’s backed by widely respected pianist and composer JOSH NELSON, who is a recording artist, composer, and educator who has performed with some of the biggest names in jazz. He has recorded for countless albums, films, and T.V. shows, as well as releasing seven CDs as a leader. She first heard Nelson on the radio shortly after moving to Los Angeles in 2012. “He let the music breathe, and he added to it with such grace and elegance,” says Cardona. “I was thrilled that Josh agreed to work with me. He was so incredibly busy, that it took a full year of scheduling and rescheduling until we could nail down a rehearsal and a recording date. He was an absolute dream to work with, and I would wait another year to do it again.”
She’s also backed by bass player DAVE ROBAIRE, who is a professor of Jazz Studies at California State University, Northridge’s prestigious music school and is the Manager of Music at Sam First, one of Los Angeles’s most important venues for creative music. On drums is DAN SCHNELLE, one of the busiest, sought-after musicians in the Los Angeles area. Amarilio brought on board MICHAEL HUNTER to play flugelhorn. Hunter has performed with the likes of Stanley Clarke, Kamasi Washington, and Lenny Kravitz, among many others. And guitarist NOZOMI YAMAGUCHI is a dear friend of Cardona. “He was an integral part of giving this record a sound all its own, since he brings a more soulful rhythmic approach to these songs,” says Cardona.
Her upcoming EP, Secret Crush, reveals Cardona’s sexier side, blending her contemporary jazz style with more pop and soul than her previous work. Secret Crush was produced by GRAMMY award winning producer SAM BARSH, who’s written for and played piano on records by the likes of Aloe Black, Kendrick Lamar and Anderson Paak.
Cardona wears her heart on her sleeve. Her emotions, vulnerable and exposed, flow through her music like a gentle stream. Her voice is sinuous and lyrical, and the musicianship on these three tunes is superb. As Cardona puts it, “I want my music to convey the nuances of the experiences I’ve had. I want listeners to feel that they can relate to me on the deepest level.”

POSTPONED Pecha Kucha: Crosstown Arts Resident Artist Talk
2020-04-09 14:00 - 15:00 | Crosstown Arts East Atrium, 1350 Concourse Avenue, Memphis, TN, United States
** This event is postponed until further notice.
Crosstown Arts resident artists Brian Pera, Lawrence Matthews, Clare Johnson, Khari Wynn, Tadasuke Jinno, and Johnathan Payne will discuss their work in a Pecha Kucha-style artist talk.
The Crosstown Arts residency program offers multidisciplinary residencies to visiting and Memphis-based artists and curators, working in any creative discipline including visual and performing arts, music, film, and writing in all genres.
The key to Pecha Kucha is the 20×20 format: all presenters show 20 slides for 20 seconds each, making each presentation concise and dynamic. If you’re wondering what “Pecha Kucha” means, it draws its name from the Japanese term for the sound of “chit chat.”
Pecha Kucha Nights began in Tokyo as an opportunity for artists, designers and architects to show samples of their work through a concise, timed presentation in a relaxed community setting. Over the past 10 years, these events have expanded to hundreds of cities across the globe, and often include a variety of community members sharing a wide array of interesting (and sometimes hilarious) topics.

POSTPONED An Evening with Cheley Tackett
2020-04-09 14:00 - 16:00 | TN
** This event is postponed until further notice.
Performance by singer-songwriter Cheley Tackett.
Tickets: $12
Doors at 6:30 pm
Cheley Tackett is a MerleFest Chris Austin Songwriting Contest winner, Kerrville Folk Festival New Folk winner, Independent Acoustic Music Award finalist (Best Song & Female Vocalist Categories), JPF Song of the Year winner, and 2018 International Songwriting Competition semi-finalist in the Americana Category. Maverick Magazine said, “she writes with the deep confidence and total abandon that only a true artist is capable of … One of the most powerful, soulful singers in the business.”
Organized by the artist

POSTPONED Crosstown Arthouse presents Paris is Burning
2020-04-09 14:30 - 16:30 | Crosstown Theater, 1350 Concourse Ave., Memphis, TN, 38104, United States
** This event is postponed until further notice.
Jennie Livingston’s Paris is Burning documents African-American and Latinx drag culture in 1980s New York City. Focusing on ballroom competition culture, Paris is Burning introduced the rest of America to voguing. Beautifully shot in 16mm, the film told the stories of gay and trans people of color and how, after being rejected by their families and straight society, they managed to find accepting family units and ways to survive (which sometimes included shoplifting and sex work). Paris is Burning was the inspiration for the television show Pose.
Jennie Livingston/1990/78 minutes
The Crosstown Arthouse Film Series showcases a diverse collection of independent, international, historically significant, artistic, experimental, cult, underground and documentary features.
Films begin at 7:30 pm sharp at Crosstown Theater
Tickets are $5 (at the door only)

Shoot & Splice: Meet the Programmers
2020-04-09 15:00 - 17:00 | TN
While we all continue to practice social distancing, Indie Memphis & Crosstown Arts are excited to bring the monthly filmmaker forum, Shoot & Splice, online!
For this month’s event, please join us for a “Meet the Programmers” discussion and Q&A. Join Indie Memphis Artistic Director Miriam Bale, Senior Programmer Brighid Wheeler, and Programmer Kayla Myers as they discuss their programming values and style and what they look for from films and filmmakers. Filmmakers and programmers are still learning what the future holds in this new virtual film festival landscape. Come be a part of the conversation!
**RSVP to the S&S Zoom video chat here: https://bit.ly/3bPCnDK
—
Shoot & Splice is a FREE filmmaker forum presented monthly by Crosstown Arts and Indie Memphis.

POSTPONED Crosstown Arthouse presents Black Orpheus
2020-04-16 14:30 - 16:30 | Crosstown Theater, 1350 Concourse Ave., Memphis, TN, 38104, United States
** This event is postponed until further notice.
Black Orpheus is a retelling of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, set in the streets of Rio during Carnival. When released in 1959, Black Orpheus was an arthouse hit, driven by incredible cinematography, location, and bossa nova music.
Only later, people started to re-examine Black Orpheus, its popularity, and its audience — especially the idea of an all-black cast being shoehorned into a Greek myth through the lens of a white French director. Despite its complications and glossing-over of what life was like for the poor in Rio, Black Orpheus is, without doubt, a cultural milestone and an influence on later works in film and music. Black Orpheus is another one of those award-winning films everyone is supposed to see, but in this case, seriously, you should come see it!
Marcel Camus/1959/107 minutes
The Crosstown Arthouse Film Series showcases a diverse collection of independent, international, historically significant, artistic, experimental, cult, underground and documentary features.
Films begin at 7:30 pm sharp at Crosstown Theater
Tickets are $5 (at the door only)

POSTPONED The Cutaway Acoustic Guitar Series: Peppino D'Agostino
2020-04-17 14:30 - 16:30 | Crosstown Arts, The Green Room, 1350 Concourse Ave., Suite 280, Memphis, TN, 38104, United States
** This event is postponed until further notice.
Crosstown Arts presents The Cutaway Acoustic Guitar Series, a monthly concert series showcasing internationally acclaimed guitarists in partnership with the Little Rock-based Argenta Acoustic Music Series. April’s performance features guitarist Peppino D’Agostino in an intimate, solo performance.
Tickets: $20
Doors at 7 pm | Show at 7:30 pm
D’Agostino has performed in more than 34 countries, at prestigious international festivals and has played in some of the world’s most important theaters. He has shared the stage with Tommy Emmanuel, Leo Kottke, Laurindo Almeida, Sergio Assad, Larry Carlton, and Eric Johnson, to name a few. His solo recordings include high quality labels such as Favored Nations, Mesa / Bluemoon, and Acoustic Music Records. Recognized as “the guitarist’s guitarist” by Acoustic Guitar magazine and described as “a giant of the acoustic guitar” by the San Diego Reader, in 2017 Guitar Player listed him as one of the 50 transcendent superheroes of all time. The CD “Every Step of The Way” was awarded by Acoustic Guitar’s People’s Choice Awards with a Bronze medal for Best Acoustic Album of All Time. His signature Seagull acoustic guitar has been voted among the ten best signature guitars by Guitar Player magazine.

POSTPONED A Change of Tone, a Music Exhibition
2020-04-18 14:30 - 2020-04-20 16:30 | Crosstown Arts, The Green Room, 1350 Concourse Ave., Suite 280, Memphis, TN, 38104, United States
** This event is postponed until further notice.
In A Change of Tone, musicians will “exhibit” new work in one venue while performing in another, creating a non-traditional listening experience.
The goal of A Change of Tone is to invite artists to sonically and musically explore the varied interrelations between technical musical themes and humanity: what we experience, observe, believe, and imagine within the realms of our intellectual capabilities.
Admission is free (but donations of any amount are suggested); please RSVP on Eventbrite
Doors at 7 pm | Performances beginning each night at 7:30 pm
Lineup:
Saturday, April 18 – NICHOLAS MALONEY
Saturday, April 19 – GUNTER GAUPP
Monday, April 20 – THE ACHELOIS COLLECTIVE

ABOUT THE EVENT:
During this event, there will be two live-feed interconnections between The Green Room music venue at Crosstown Arts and Crosstown Theater. The first feed will be an audio feed for the audience in The Green Room, as the musicians, out of sight, perform their original work in the empty Crosstown Theater. The second feed will video-capture The Green Room audience so the performing musicians in the Theater may virtually watch and technically perform for their audience on the screen. The audience in The Green Room will be informed in advance that they will be watched by the performing musicians in the theater, creating an immersive environment in which the performers’ new music might achieve a vivid and seemingly living omnipresence.
Similar to the experience of being inside a haunted house or abandoned building, this spectral approach to auditory perception will be, among other things, a sonic experiment in vulnerability. It will be an attempt to enhance and heighten the audio-sensory experience for the listener and perhaps will intensify the presence and impact that music can have when our fight-or-flight response is instinctively activated, giving the sounds we hear the power to demand our full attention.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:
Nicholas Maloney:
Nicholas Maloney is a sound artist, multi-instrumentalist, performer, and recording engineer from Jackson, Mississippi. Working primarily in the areas of drone, ambient, musique concrète, and electroacoustics, Nicholas creates recordings that he feels can provoke emotion, while at the same time offering a palette of sound that can be used to practice the rewarding act of deep listening. He looks to challenge the listeners’ focus and perception of sound. Much of his work explores the textural nature of sound within a framework of progressing and evolving compositions. He is interested in the interaction among texture, sound, and space.
Under his full name, Nicholas Maloney creates and releases compositions using field recordings, found sounds, and a variety of processing and audio transformation techniques. He also records under the moniker, Blanket Swimming, exploring the more melodic and ambient side of experimental music using guitar, synthesizers, tape manipulation, field recordings, voice, and other instrumentation. Maloney also records under the name Sleep Silver Lightning, exploring compositions for the guitar and voice. In 2015, Maloney co-founded the net-label Warm Milk Recordings with Whitson Ramsey.
Gunter Gaupp:
Gunter is a composer and teacher based in Memphis, who’s work combines interests in noise composition and genre music. Born in Louisiana, Gunter’s recent work maintains a connection to jazz and folk traditions in his approach to melody and harmony, while exploring new possibilities through extended technique and graphic notation. His music has been premiered recently in Chicago and Green Bay, as well as internationally in Vienna and Paris. Gunter completed his MM in 2019 at the University of Memphis, where he studied composition under Kamran Ince and John Baur. More recently, Gunter has begun teaching music to middle and high school students at Memphis Rise Academy. Gunter will be presenting his new work for A Change of Tone as a quintet, featuring Aaron Phillips (saxophone), Anna Welden (voice), Bryan Pallotta (piano), Michael Todd (percussion), and Ben Walsh (double bass).
The Achelois Collective:
The Achelois Collective is a contemporary chamber ensemble dedicated to helping co-design opportunities to create healthier communities through the art of new music. The ensemble’s 10 members are featured as composers, collaborators, chambers musicians, and soloists who hail from across the continental U.S. Established in the summer of 2019, TAC seeks to elevate, celebrate, and embolden female/non-binary voices in modern music and to support projects by artists of under-acknowledged backgrounds and nationalities.
In an effort to assist the world of classical music to become more egalitarian, TAC creates spaces for active participation and appreciation for audiences of all genders, ages and musical knowledge. Equally important, the Collective strives to represent within themselves a model of respect and appreciation for the unique abilities and perspectives of their members and collaborators.

POSTPONED Crosstown Arthouse presents The Muthers
2020-04-23 14:30 - 16:30 | Crosstown Theater, 1350 Concourse Ave., Memphis, TN, 38104, United States
** This event is postponed until further notice.
We can’t say it better than the incredible American Genre Film Archive, who are lovingly saving films like this for folks like us to show again in all their glory on a giant screen!
Says the American Genre Film Archive: “Sleaze ahoy! Directed by heroic smut merchant Cirio Santiago (TNT Jackson, Vampire Hookers) and shot on-the-cheap in the Philippines, The Muthers is like stepping into one of Martin Denny’s exotica LPs while it plays in Jess Franco’s living room. Filled with karate chops and epic psychedelic-funk jams, this is the story of two pirates (Jeanne Bell and Rosanne Katon) who rob and loot on the China Seas, get sent to a women’s prison presided over by a sadistic warden, then revolt and turn the sky black with the smoke from their machine guns. In other words, this is the only revolutionary-pirate-women-in-prison movie that you’ll ever need. Restored from the original negative for maximum savagery!”
Cirio Santiago/1976/93 minutes
The Crosstown Arthouse Film Series showcases a diverse collection of independent, international, historically significant, artistic, experimental, cult, underground and documentary features.
Films begin at 7:30 pm sharp at Crosstown Theater
Tickets are $5 (at the door only)

POSTPONED Morgan James: Memphis Magnetic Tour at Crosstown Arts
2020-04-24 14:30 - 16:30 | Crosstown Arts, The Green Room, 1350 Concourse Ave., Suite 280, Memphis, TN, 38104, United States
** This event is postponed until further notice.
Crosstown Arts presents Morgan James’ Memphis Magnetic Tour in The Green Room.
Tickets: $20 General Admission | $50 VIP with artist meet & greet
Doors at 7 pm | Show at 7:30 pm
Memphis Magnetic is the third studio album from soul singer Morgan James. This album is a love letter to one of the great American birthplaces of soul. Rooted in her love of Aretha Franklin, Al Green, and Otis Redding, Morgan James delivers as only she can. The Memphis Magnetic Tour will be a feast for the ears and the heart, from the soul of a great artist with a love for what is real and true in American music.
Let’s start with the voice, an instrument through which she can communicate anything. A gift bestowed upon her that she has expertly trained, meticulously nurtured, and passionately galvanized into action by an urgency to make real music. Next, the stories, and she has them in spades. They are full of truth and beauty, heartache and thoughtfulness. They reveal colors we weren’t expecting to see. They make us close our eyes and relate. And finally, the soul – the emotional and intellectual energy through which these parts are fueled. That special something that prompted The Wall Street Journal to herald her as “the most promising young vocalist to come along so far this century.” That young vocalist is Morgan James. And Morgan James is a soul singer.
Armed with her dedication to create authentic soul music, James and her husband Doug Wamble, her producer, co-writer, and arranger, spent months writing twelve new songs in New York City. “Doug and I have always wanted to make a classic record like this,” she says. “Doug is originally from Memphis and we are both so inspired by the roots of classic soul music. Being entrenched in a place like that really informs everything you make there.” So, instead of recording in New York, she aimed straight for the source and booked a week at a new music studio in Memphis, at the recommendation of drummer George Sluppick.
She immediately connected with the space: Memphis Magnetic, a renovated old bank transformed into a classic recording studio, decked out with a collection of vintage Nashville gear by owner Scott McEwen. The space exemplified exactly what James wanted her album to be: something new through the prism of something old. She and Wamble assembled a group of local musicians, including Sluppick, organist Al Gamble, bassist Landon Moore, and pianist Alvie Givhan. They tapped legendary Memphis musicians Reverend Charles Hodges and Leroy Hodges, who were the backbone of the Hi Records rhythm section, which played with Al Green and Ann Peebles, to contribute to two tracks. And finally, the team was rounded out with a classic Memphis horn section, plus the amazing Memphis String Quartet.
“What I’ve learned over the years is to hire great people and let them do what they do best,” says James. “We came in with all the music charted and ready and left space for people to be themselves and infuse it with their own magic. I really wanted every single person involved in the album to be from Memphis and to channel the great albums I admire so much. From every end of the spectrum, in every department, it felt like the right people.”
The entire album was recorded to analog tape, a first for James. She wanted to be less precious about the process overall and to capture the same invigorated feeling as her live performances. Much of the album comes from single, complete takes, giving it a vibrant, in-the-moment sensibility. The songs on the album range in tone, but there’s a hopeful, life-affirming feeling that threads through the tracks. The playful “I Wish You Would” takes its cues from “Mr. Big Stuff,” while “All I Ever Gave You” looks back on losing someone after endless sacrifices. The album also features two duets, another first for James, with Marc Broussard and three-time Grammy nominee Ryan Shaw. The collaboration with Shaw, “I Don’t Mind Waking Up (To A Love This Good)” is the first single and a song James calls one of her favorites she’s ever written. And a standout moment comes on the closing track “Who’s Going to Listen To You? (When You’re Crying Now),” a song James and Wamble wrote with lyrics from a poem by Spin Doctors’ lead singer Chris Barron. It creates a poignant and heart-wrenching final note for the album, a collection of genuine, satisfying songs that embrace the best of American songwriting. The experience was so inspiring and affirming that James ended up titling the album Memphis Magnetic after the studio where it was made (an homage to Jimi Hendrix and his Electric Ladyland).
For James, Memphis Magnetic is the culmination of a life-long love affair with music. She grew up listening to everyone from Joni Mitchell to Paul Simon to Prince to Aretha Franklin, cultivating an insatiable love for strong songwriters. After graduating from The Juilliard School with a classical music degree, and performing in the original companies of four Broadway productions, James began writing and recording her own music. Meeting her mentor Berry Gordy, Jr. led to a record deal at Epic Records, where she recorded and released her solo album Hunter in 2014. In addition to her studio albums, James recorded and released a full album cover of Joni Mitchell’s seminal Blue as well as The Beatles’ White Album in 2018 to celebrate the 50th anniversary. Through her unique and varied career, there have been many ups and downs, but James cites her failures as more important than her successes in shaping the artist she is today.
After her tenure with Epic Records, she took charge of her career from the business side as well. She cultivated a new world of fans with her viral YouTube videos, and while connecting with them on social media and at her live shows, she found the support and strength to go out on her own as an independent artist. Over the last several years, James has built her own empire and established herself as a touring powerhouse, allowing her to raise the funds to create her albums and make every decision from the ground up.
“This album feels so unburdened by anybody or anything. All of the songs were written for this project. They were recorded in the same way, in the same room. It’s a moment in time captured. I felt like I was a part of the lineage of soul music. My guiding force throughout the record was ‘What would Aretha say? What would Otis say?’ It’s not a retro album or a throwback by any means. This album is me: classic elements, timeless melodies, and lyrics from my soul and experience. We need that right now. We need real music now more than ever.”

POSTPONED Ruthie Foster at Crosstown Theater
2020-04-25 15:00 - 17:00 | Crosstown Theater, 1350 Concourse Ave., Memphis, TN, 38104, United States
** This event is postponed until further notice.
Join us for a performance by Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Ruthie Foster at Crosstown Theater.
Tickets: $40
Doors at 7 pm | Show at 8 pm
Ruthie Foster’s latest album, “Joy Comes Back,” described as “some folk, some blues, some soul, some rock, some gospel,” illustrates Ruthie’s genre-spanning talent. Ruthie has been nominated for three Grammys and has won multiple Blues Music and Austin Music Awards, plus the Grand Prix du Disque from Académie Charles-Cros in France.
Hailing from the tightly knit musical community of Austin, Texas, award-winning singer-songwriter Ruthie Foster has found herself duetting with Bonnie Raitt, standing on stage with the Allman Brothers at New York’s Beacon Theater, and trading verses with Susan Tedeschi.

POSTPONED A Night with BLVCK Hippie
2020-04-25 15:30 - 17:30 | TN
** This event is postponed until further notice.
Musical performance by BLVCK Hippie, Surfwax, Anon the Mouse, Cinder Eyes, and Bigger Fish
Doors at 8 pm | Show at 8:30 pm
Organized by the artists

POSTPONED Crosstown Arthouse presents Walking Tall
2020-04-30 14:30 - 16:30 | Crosstown Theater, 1350 Concourse Ave., Memphis, TN, 38104, United States
** This event is postponed until further notice.
The legends surrounding Buford Pusser loom large over both Memphis and McNairy County, where he was sheriff from 1964 to 1970. Buford was a professional wrestler who became a sheriff in an area overrun by the Dixie Mafia. He went to war with and killed Louise Hathcock, the operator of The Shamrock Motel, where the Babushka lady was supposedly seen hanging out a week or so before JFK got popped.
Buford’s star really started to shine when his friend, country and rockabilly singer Eddie Bond started singing about him. Legend has it, when Buford got ambushed by the Dixie Mafia (and his wife was killed and his face was shot off), he hid out in Memphis at a nightclub on Madison that Eddie Bond owned with “The Fabulous One” Jackie Fargo.
Buford’s legend and story was interesting enough that they made THREE movies about him, and the first is Walking Tall. The film fictionalizes Buford’s journey from bear wrestler to one-man crime crusader. Walking Tall stars character actor Jo Don Baker (Joysticks and Fletch) as Buford Pusser and Elizabeth Hartman (A Patch of Blue and The Secret of NIMH) as his wife Pauline, plus Lief Garrett (Macon Count Line, Walking Tall Part II, Final Chapter: Walking Tall, Tiger Beat Cover Model) and Lief’s real-life sister Dawn Lyn as the Pusser kids!
1973/Phil Karlson/1973/125 minutes
The Crosstown Arthouse Film Series showcases a diverse collection of independent, international, historically significant, artistic, experimental, cult, underground and documentary features.
Films begin at 7:30 pm sharp at Crosstown Theater
Tickets are $5 (at the door only)

POSTPONED U.S. Girls in The Green Room
2020-05-01 14:30 - 16:30 | Crosstown Arts, The Green Room, 1350 Concourse Ave., Suite 280, Memphis, TN, 38104, United States
** This event is postponed until further notice.
Join us in The Green Room at Crosstown Arts for a performance by U.S. Girls.
Tickets: $10
Doors at 7 pm | Show at 7:30 pm
The highly anticipated seventh album by U.S. Girls, the protean musical enterprise of multi-disciplinary artist Meg Remy, is entitled Heavy Light. While Remy has been widely acclaimed for a panoply of closely observed character studies, on Heavy Light she turns inward, recounting personal narratives to create a deeply introspective about-face.
The songs are an inquest into the melancholy flavor of hindsight, both personal and cultural. Heavy Light follows 2018’s internationally critically acclaimed breakout album, In A Poem Unlimited. Recently named one of the best albums of the decade by Pitchfork, it was lauded across the pond by the likes of The Guardian, The Sunday Times, and Crack and Q magazine for being Remy’s most accessible record in her then decade-long career.
Heavy Light is produced by Remy and was recorded live with 20 session musicians – including E Street Band saxophonist Jake Clemons – in Montreal’s acclaimed Hotel 2 Tango studio. Heavy Light is a set of songs conceived as a balance between orchestral percussion (as richly arranged by percussionist Ed Squires) and the human voice (conducted by Kritty Uranowski). The resulting album finds Remy casting herself as lead voice among a harmonious multitude, the singers of which lend not only their voices, but also share reflections on childhood experiences that are collaged into moving spoken word interludes throughout the album.

POSTPONED Willie Farmer with Tim Easton in The Green Room
2020-05-05 14:30 - 16:30 | Crosstown Arts, The Green Room, 1350 Concourse Ave., Suite 280, Memphis, TN, 38104, United States
This event is postponed until further notice.
Join us in The Green Room at Crosstown Arts for a performance by Mississippi bluesman Willie Farmer, with an opening set by Tim Easton.
Tickets: $15
Doors at 7pm | Performance at 7:30pm
Willie Farmer is living proof that Mississippi continues to produce deep blues. The 63-year-old guitarist is neither a soul modernist nor revivalist, but simply a small-town auto mechanic who’s never shaken his love for old school legends like Muddy, Wolf, and Lightnin’.
A lifelong resident of tiny Duck Hill, located in the hills east of the Delta, Farmer grew up on the family farm. He first took up the acoustic guitar in his early teens, and through picking cotton, soon saved up enough money to buy an electric instrument.
He played for audiences at home and at school events and learned about blues and R&B, mostly through listening to a powerful station out of Nashville. “John R of WLAC, that’s how I listened to Lightnin’ Hopkins, Howlin’ Wolf. That’s how I got my first album by Lightnin’ [The Fire Records LP Mojo Hand]. I got the address off the radio, and they sent it.”
“I learned Lightin’ pretty good. I can play all the up-to-date stuff now — B.B., Little Milton — but I like the old stuff; that’s the real blues. The blues they’re singing today, that ain’t blues to me; it just doesn’t have the feel.”
Willie’s father Alex, a harmonica player who helped young Willie tune his guitar, had played as a young man with his brothers, including Walter, who was recognized as one of the best guitarists to come out of the area.
In the early ‘50s, Walter played together with Leo “Bud” Welch, who grew up in the region. Sadly, Walter was killed in Chicago in 1964 — “a woman liked Walter, and a man got jealous and killed him” — and Willie never heard him play.
In his early ‘20s, Farmer joined a loos- knit band that played at juke joints across the area — in Duck Hill, Grenada, Kilmichael, and down in the Delta in Greenwood and Charleston. He eventually tired, though, of the rough-and-tumble clubs where “people liked to fight like crazy. ”
For about fifteen years, Farmer worked regularly with local semi-professional gospel groups, including the Rising Sun Singers, who appeared on TV and over the radio in Greenwood, the Angelettes, and, for nine years, the Grenada-based Silvertone Gospel Singers. In 2003, he helped found the annual Grassroots Blues Festival, staged in a meadow outside Duck Hill. Through the event, he befriended down-home blues players from across the state, including Willie King and Welch.
“The Man From the Hill” marks the first time that he’s spent serious time in the studio. Recorded over multiple sessions at Producer Bruce Watson’s Memphis based Delta-Sonic Sound Studio. Farmer enjoyed working in a North Mississippi Hill Country vein with Jimbo Mathus and session drummer George Sluppick. He even dipped back into gospel, singing harmony together with Memphis’ Barnes Brothers on [the Sensational Nightingales’] “At the Meeting.”
For the past 30 years, Farmer has run his own auto repair shop and hopes that the release of this record and associated touring will allow him to retire.
“I’m trying to get out of that shop. I’m tried of messing with those cars. It’s been a long time.”
To celebrate 30 years of traveling with and writing songs on his black Gibson J-45 acoustic guitar named ”Paco,” Nashville-based songwriter Tim Easton recorded an entire album direct-to-lacquer at The Earnest Tube Studio in Bristol, Virginia. This performance-based method of capturing songs leaves no room for manipulation or overdubbing, therefore conjuring the roots of American Music. Each track was recorded via portable lathe, which cuts a mono signal directly to a lacquer acetate disc, much the way The Carter Family or Jimmie Rodgers would have made their first records in Bristol over 90 years ago.
In as much time as it takes to listen, Easton recorded nine original songs and one cover using a single 1940s RCA 74B ribbon microphone, alternating between the rapid fire flat-picking and steady, Travis-style thumb-picking technique that he has been streamlining all these years, coupled with his Country Blues style rack harmonica playing. The occasional foot stomp can be heard as well, vibrating through the floors. Easton sings songs from the personal experiences and observations of man who has spent a few decades on the road. His folk music is not always the gentle kind. His authenticity is pervasive. This is what the tradition of the troubadour sounds like.
This LP serves as a love letter of sorts to Easton’s trusty Gibson acoustic guitar, which he purchased in 1987 for $100, plus two cheap electric guitars on trade. Leaving Ohio and exploring Europe on and off for seven years, Easton traveled extensively by train, bus, and thumb, learning to write songs along the way. Soon after a Deadhead in Paris named his guitar “Paco,” Easton made his first recordings just a short walk away from the Charles Bridge in Prague, where he had been busking in the Summer after Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution.
After returning Stateside and signing with EMI Music Publishing, he released several critically acclaimed albums with both New West Records and Thirty Tigers. His last album, 2016’s American Fork (Last Change Records) reached #11 on the Americana Music Association Radio Charts. Easton continues to travel the world and perform while also delving into film score work done at his home studio in Nashville. He has scored two feature documentaries, “The Power Of Two” (2012), and “The Bullish Farmer” (2017) and also placed original songs in film and television. The American South has left it’s emotional and sonic mark on many a traveler, and it shows in Easton’s range of performances on this unique LP.

Shoot & Splice: On Editing
2020-05-07 15:00 - 16:30 | TN
**RSVP to the S&S Zoom video chat here: https://bit.ly/35pebWV
Indie Memphis and Crosstown Arts are excited to put the “splice” in Shoot & Splice!
Join us for a virtual chat with film editors Eileen Meyer (CRIP CAMP) and Michael Taylor (THE FAREWELL), moderated by filmmaker Laura Jean Hocking. They will discuss several topics including: working with a director, workflow preferences, creative techniques, and more. This is your chance to learn from some of the best independent editors in both narrative and documentary film.
Shoot & Splice is a FREE filmmaker forum presented by Crosstown Arts and Indie Memphis, featuring a wide variety of technical, educational, and unique topics of interest to the Memphis filmmaking community.
—

Eileen Meyer is a film editor and producer based in Los Angeles, CA. In 2016, she was awarded the Karen Schmeer Editing Fellowship and was nominated for the Cinema Eye Honors “Outstanding Achievement in Editing” Award for Best of Enemies (2015 Sundance Film Festival, 2016 Academy Award shortlist, and 2017 Emmy Award winner).
Eileen received her BA in Film from Hampshire College in 2004, then began her career in New York City and Memphis, TN. She produced and edited numerous award-winning shorts, features, and tv series, including most recently “The Devil Next Door” (Netflix 2019) and “Crip Camp” (Sundance 2020).
—
Michael Taylor is a member of the American Cinema Editors (ACE). He was nominated for an ACE Eddie Award for Best Editing of a Feature Comedy, for Lulu Wang’s “The Farewell,” starring Awkwafina, Tze Ma, Diana Lin and Zhao Shuzhen, which premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. The film won Best Feature at the Independent Spirit Awards, and was nominated for best feature at the Gotham Awards and best international feature at the Golden Globes and BAFTAs. Awkwafina won Best Actress at the Golden Globes and Gothams. A24 released the film.
Taylor’s most recent project, Edson Oda’s “Nine Days,” starring Winston Duke, Zazie Beetz, Benedict Wong, Bill Skarsgård and Tony Hale, won the Waldo Salt Award for Best Screenwriting at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. Sony Pictures Classics will release the film fall 2020.

POSTPONED Modern Masters Jazz Series feat. Peter Bernstein
2020-05-12 14:30 - 16:30 | Crosstown Arts, The Green Room, 1350 Concourse Ave., Suite 280, Memphis, TN, 38104, United States
This event is postponed until further notice.
Crosstown Arts presents the Modern Masters Jazz Series, a monthly series featuring jazz soloists from around the country performing with the series house band, The Ted Ludwig Trio. May’s featured musician will be award-winning guitarist Peter Bernstein.
Tickets: $20
Doors at 7pm | Performance 7:30pm
The jazz guitarist, among the most sought after in the New York area, has a feather-light touch, an encyclopedic knowledge of chords and the ability to play standards like he’s inventing them on the spot. — The Los Angeles Daily News
Mr. Bernstein is a fluidly improvising guitarist in the post-bop tradition, with control over harmony and a beautiful sound. — The New York Times
Peter Bernstein produces a warm, ringing, muscular tone which echoes that of such giants as Wes Montgomery, Jim Hall, and Kenny Burrell. — Jazziz
Jazz guitarist Peter Bernstein has been a part of the jazz scene in New York and abroad since 1989. During that time he has participated in numerous recordings and performances with musicians from all generations. As a leader, Peter has released nine albums and a DVD. As a sideman, Peter has appeared in groups led by Sonny Rollins, Bobby Hutcherson, George Coleman, Lou Donaldson, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Fathead Newman, Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau, Diana Krall, Lee Konitz, Jimmy Cobb, and many more. Current projects include his album, Monk, with Doug Weiss and Bill Stewart, a recently released solo record, Solo Guitar – Live at Smalls, and the highly acclaimed organ trio with organist Larry Goldings and drummer Bill Stewart.
The Modern Masters Jazz Series is guest-curated by renowned two-decade New Orleans jazz guitarist Ted Ludwig, who has received an ASCAP award, the Louis Armstrong award, and the Overture to the Cultural Season award and is a member of The Arkansas Jazz Hall of Fame. Each month in 2020, Crosstown Arts welcomes jazz artists from New Orleans, NYC, LA, and beyond, who will perform with the Ted Ludwig Trio. Highlights include Roseanna Vitro, who has sung with Christian McBride, Elvin Jones, and Lionel Hampton; Ed Cherry, of Dizzy Gillespie’s band; GRAMMY-winner Victor Atkins; and Dee Dee Bridgewater saxophonist Ed Peterson.

POSTPONED Art of Science 2020
2020-05-14 - 2020-08-16 | Crosstown Arts Galleries, 1350 Concourse Ave., Suite 280, Memphis, TN, 38104, United States
This event is postponed until further notice.
Crosstown Arts, Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital, and the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) present the 7th annual Art of Science exhibition.
Local artists are paired up with medical research scientists and doctors from across Memphis. Together, scientists and artists create work that introduces new audiences to the science that is saving children’s lives everyday in Memphis.
Researchers at Le Bonheur and UTHSC not only strive to prevent and cure childhood illnesses, but are also making discoveries that can improve the health and well-being of all Memphians. By making art inspired by their research, Art of Science artists create unique portals that enable viewers to peer inside the laboratories of these renowned facilities.

POSTPONED Bobby Lee's Girl
2020-05-21 13:00 - 15:00 | TN
This event is postponed until further notice.
Exhibition of new paintings by N.J. Woods, inspired by the artist’s grandmother.

POSTPONED The Cutaway Acoustic Guitar Series: Sam Pacetti
2020-05-22 14:30 - 16:30 | Crosstown Arts, The Green Room, 1350 Concourse Ave., Suite 280, Memphis, TN, 38104, United States
This event is postponed until further notice.
Crosstown Arts presents The Cutaway Acoustic Guitar Series, a monthly concert series showcasing internationally acclaimed guitarists in partnership with the Little Rock-based Argenta Acoustic Music Series. May’s performance features guitarist Sam Pacetti in an intimate, solo performance.
Tickets: $20
Doors at 7 pm | Show at 7:30 pm
Sam Pacetti is one who brings it all together. A fingerstyle guitar wizard. A deft songwriter, capable of haunting depth and wry humor in the space of one song. An impassioned and ecstatic vocalist, as well as a mesmerizing live performer, seamlessly melding head-spinning guitar pyrotechnics and raw emotion into one breathtaking package. Pacetti represents a culmination of the best of the American and British traditions. His 1997 Waterbug debut, Solitary Travel, garnered critical raves. “This guy is very good, indeed,” deadpanned the highly respected (and highly critical) UK magazine Folk Roots. And Dirty Linen, the influential US roots publication, opined, “Although the woods are full of young guitar virtuosos, few have developed the style, technique, and artistic wisdom of Sam Pacetti.
Solitary travel heralds the arrival of one of the most talented instrumentalists and composers to appear in acoustic music in a month of Sundays.” Sam Pacetti grew up in North Florida, hardly known as a hotbed of either the folk tradition or musical innovation. At age 13, he found the music of both Chet Atkins and Merle Travis, profound influences on his early musical development. Then fate intervened shortly afterward in the person of Gamble Rogers, the legendary picker and raconteur from St Augustine who took the young Pacetti under his wing. It was a time of astonishing musical and emotional growth. Pacetti and Rogers met and played weekly for a year, until tragically Rogers died while trying to save a drowning tourist caught in an undertow at Flagler Beach, Florida.
Though brief in their time together, Rogers was able to instill in Pacetti the importance of the folk process, the passing of music and oral tradition from teacher to student. Pacetti still counts Rogers as his most influential mentor. Tradition and innovation neatly balance in Sam Pacetti’s music, the whole infused by a relentless intelligence intent on musical and philosophical synthesis. Martin Simpson, Richard Thompson, Joni Mitchell and Merle Travis are touchstones to Pacetti, and while there are strong elements of the American primitive school of guitar wizardry throughout his work, there is a powerful raw emotionality evident as well – an earthy sensuality more reminiscent of a Greg Brown or a red-dirt blues master than of a musical academian. Word has started to spread about Sam Pacetti. And as with anything truly innovative, it starts at the grassroots. You won’t see Pacetti written up in People or Us. You won’t hear his music on Top-40 radio.
No, word is spreading about Sam Pacetti the way true innovation always does – through the grassroots, through non-commercial radio and “specialty show” play, from tapes and CDs passed from friend to friend, At folk festivals and listening rooms, and in the tradition stemming from the days of rent-raising parties in the Mississippi Delta (and now carried on by music aficionados unable to find music that interest them within the mainstream).

POSTPONED Nutria in The Green Room
2020-05-27 14:30 - 16:30 | Crosstown Arts, The Green Room, 1350 Concourse Ave., Suite 280, Memphis, TN, 38104, United States
This event is postponed until further notice.
Join us in The Green Room at Crosstown Arts for a contemporary jazz performance by Nutria from New Orleans.
Tickets: $10
Doors at 7 pm | Show at 7:30 pm
Named after the infamous South Louisiana swamp rat, Nutria performs original contemporary jazz music with an emphasis on collective improvisation. Their compositional and improvisational practice at once pushes at the boundaries of instrumental music in the 21st century and situates the music within the lineage of New Orleans jazz and groove traditions.
This concert at Crosstown Arts is a part of their 2020 album release tour, celebrating their new album, “Meeting In Progress,” released in February 2020 on ears&eyes Records.
“Showing a clear strategic intelligence and inventiveness and a substantial depth of artistic resourcefulness,” according to No Depression magazine, Nutria has toured throughout the United States playing art centers, jazz clubs, and dive bars. In 2017, they performed on the Millennium Stage at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. In 2016, they were commissioned by the New Orleans-based Marigny Opera Ballet to compose “Wary Heat,” a new ballet that was premiered in February 2017 and reprised in January 2018. In 2019, Nutria began a weekly residency at one of New Orleans’ top venues for creative music, Bacchanal Fine Wine.
Nutria was formed in New Orleans in 2014 as a composition workshop for its members, who were active in different corners of the local music scene. Their sound reflects a diversity of influences yet with a deep commitment to the jazz idiom.
The members of Nutria have performed with a wide array of leading talents in New Orleans and around the world, including Leyla McCalla, James Singleton, Johnny Vidocovich, Ed Petersen, Mahmoud Chouki, Sarah Quintana, the Revelers and local favorites Los Po-boy-citos. Nutria has performed at venues such as the Kennedy Center (Washington, DC), the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art (NOLA), the New Orleans Jazz Museum, Twins Jazz Club (DC), Chris’ Jazz Cafe (Philadelphia), the Jazz Gallery (Milwaukee), the Chatterbox Jazz Club (Indianapolis), and the California Clipper (Chicago).

POSTPONED Warriors at Peace
2020-05-30 09:00 - 13:00 | TN
This event is postponed until further notice.
Artwork of veterans will be showcased in this therapeutic project.
Organized by the artists

POSTPONED Modern Masters Jazz Series feat. Roseanna Vitro
2020-06-09 14:30 - 16:30 | Crosstown Arts, The Green Room, 1350 Concourse Ave., Suite 280, Memphis, TN, 38104, United States
This event is postponed until further notice.
Crosstown Arts presents the Modern Masters Jazz Series, a monthly series featuring jazz soloists from around the country.
For June’s performance, acclaimed jazz vocalist Roseanna Vitro will be featured in an unforgettable performance with the series house band, The Ted Ludwig Trio.
Tickets: $20
Doors 7 pm | Performance at 7:30 pm
About Roseanna Vitro:
“[Roseanna has] a propensity for eclecticism, drawing on a wide range of songs and sources from well beyond the jazz tradition.” — Will Friedwald, City View, New York
”Tell Me the Truth is additional evidence that Roseanna Vitro is in the top tier of contemporary jazz vocalists.” — Joe Bebco, The Syncopated Times
Vitro was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas. She is the product of two distinct cultural strains: Her father, who ran the Flamingo nightclub, divided his music affinities between the pluck of Frank Sinatra and the homeland finery of Italian opera. Her mother sang country and gospel songs by way of the church.
In 1978, Roseanna Vitro moved to New York City with guitarist Scott Hardy and began to study with Gabor Carelli, a professor from the Manhattan School of Music, and began to perform with Kenny Werner and Fred Hersch. She sang with Lionel Hampton and toured with him. She appeared at The Blue Note, Iridium, Birdland, and Dizzy’s Jazz Club at Lincoln Center. She appeared with Steve Allen at The Town Hall at The Apollo Theater and recorded an album of Allen’s songs. In 2005, she performed and recorded with the Kenny Werner Trio at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. She has worked with Kenny Barron, Christian McBride, Elvin Jones, Gary Bartz, Kevin Mahogany, and David “Fathead” Newman, all of whom have appeared on her recordings. She was a guest on Marian McPartland’s radio program, Piano Jazz. Her album, The Music of Randy Newman, received 4 1/2 stars in Down Beat magazine and a Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Vocal Album in 2012.
About the series:
The Modern Masters Jazz Series is guest-curated by renowned two-decade New Orleans jazz guitarist Ted Ludwig, who has received an ASCAP award, the Louis Armstrong award, and the Overture to the Cultural Season award, and is a member of The Arkansas Jazz Hall of Fame. Each month in 2020, Crosstown Arts welcomes jazz artists from New Orleans, NYC, LA, and beyond, who will perform with The Ted Ludwig Trio. Highlights include Roseanna Vitro, who has sung with Christian McBride, Elvin Jones, and Lionel Hampton; Ed Cherry, of Dizzy Gillespie’s band; GRAMMY-winner Victor Atkins; and Dee Dee Bridgewater saxophonist Ed Peterson.
