To celebrate Women’s History Month, the jazz department at the Stax Music Academy will present a tribute to the pioneers and powerhouses that have blazed trails for women worldwide in jazz. The concert will feature SMA’s jazz vocal ensemble, Kind Of Blue, named after the iconic 1959 Miles Davis album. The vocalists will be accompanied by a band of instrumentalists from the SMA Jazz Department. This tribute includes nods to the music of Ella Fitzgerald, Nancy Wilson, Nina Simone, and even contemporary artists like Esperanza Spalding and Jamila Woods.
Gritty City Bang Bang is the brainchild of guitarist Jonathan Bass. Original compositions by Bass are elevated by Memphis titans Mike Assad and Carl Caspersen. This trio delivers improvisation permeated with cinematic Americana vibes, bringing the funk when needed. Next to the likes of BBQ and Home Depot, there has never been a better destination for heavy lifting of the human soul.
Pianist and composer Charu Suri treads fearlessly between genres, pulling global influences that range from the mood-anchoring Indian ragas, Sufi music, to the trio. Her ground-breaking albums, The Book of Ragas, and its sequel, The Book of Ragas vol. 2 have often elicited the response, “I’ve never heard this type of sound before.”
Join Kirk Whalum and special guest Dave Koz at Crosstown Theater for Kafé Kirk! 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.
Memphis-bred, GRAMMY-nominated, Echo Award-winning bassist/composer Stephan Crump is an active bandleader with twelve critically-acclaimed album releases in addition to numerous film scoring contributions. Known for transforming his instrument into a speaking entity of magnetic pull, his focus on creative instrumental music has led to collaborations with many of the leading lights of his generation, most notably Vijay Iyer, in whose trio and sextet Crump plays a dynamic, founding role. He can also be heard as long-standing member of Jen Chapin Trio, Ches Smith Trio, Rez Abbasi Acoustic Quartet, Liberty Ellman Sextet, Secret Keeper (duo with Mary Halvorson), his own Rosetta Trio (with Jamie Fox, Liberty Ellman), his Rhombal quartet (with Ellery Eskelin, Adam O’Farrill, Tyshawn Sorey), as well as co-led ensembles with Kris Davis, Ingrid Laubrock, Cory Smythe, Eric McPherson, Mat Maneri, and Okkyung Lee.
Tim Fitzgerald is a Chicago based guitarist and bandleader. He is also author of the book 625 Alive: the Wes Montgomery BBC Concert Transcribed, which has been hailed as the “Ultimate Study of Wes Montgomery’s music” (Just Jazz Guitar Magazine) and “One of the 50 greatest guitar books of all time” (The 50 Greatest Guitar Books). He has written columns for Downbeat Magazine, Just Jazz Guitar Magazine and Chicago Jazz Magazine and performed clinics at the Frank Mantooth Jazz Festival.
