Tag: The Green Room

*SOLD OUT* Rachel Maxann with Cyrena Wages and Joe Restivo

THIS SHOW IS NOW SOLD OUT.

The Green Room at Crosstown Arts
Thursday, June 8, 2023
Doors open at 7 pm | Show begins at 7:30 pm
Tickets: $15 in advance | $20 at the door

PURCHASE TICKETS HERE

As a singer/songwriter, Rachel Maxann describes her style as vintage indie-rock and post-modern folklore. Originally from Ohio, Rachel has been deeply influenced by the music culture of every area where she has lived — North Carolina; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Memphis.

“In the same show, you’ll hear country influences, blues influences, rock and pop influences, and maybe even some musical theater,” she says. By the time she arrived in Memphis in 2020, Rachel was ready for the sounds she had cultivated to weave a tapestry of her own genre — a uniquely Memphis sound from an original voice. Black Fae is Rachel’s first album produced, mixed, and mastered in her new home here in Tennessee.

Band: Mike Hewlett, Daniel Wasmund, Alice Hasen, Tamar Love, and Mitchell Jones

Special Guests: Marcella Simien, Louise Page, Bailey Bigger, and Doug

Nubia Yasin: SHEENA

Crosstown Arts presents Nubia Yasin: SHEENA in the Green Room.

The Green Room at Crosstown Arts
Saturday, April 1, 2023
Doors open at 7 pm | Show begins at 7:30 pm
Tickets: $15 advance | $20 at the door

PURCHASE TICKETS HERE

Show Description:

SHEENA, a show curated and performed by Nubia Yasin, begs the question “What would make the pain of transformation desirable?” With a blend of original poetry and music, Yasin tells the story of her own transition from girlhood to womanhood against a backdrop of deep rooted shame. By walking through her own shame, she aims to allow the audience a chance to shine a light into their darkest corners, and say to what lives there “I see you. I don’t hate you.”

Artist Bio:

Nubia Yasin is a Memphis-born writer, multidisciplinary artist, and performer. She uses her experiences as a first generation Somali-American living in the South to tell stories about Black femmehood, with an acute focus on themes related to shame. Her writing has been featured in projects for Netflix, Apple Music, and more. She’s performed in galleries and museums across the United states.

Her first full collection of poetry, The Blood and Body, was published in August 2022 with HomieHousePress.

Crosstown Arts Resident Artist Talks

The Green Room at Crosstown Arts
Thursday, March 2, 2023
Talks begin at 6 pm
Tickets: Free

Crosstown Arts resident artists will give presentations about their work in the Green Room at Crosstown Arts. The event is free and open to the public.

Su-Yee Lin writes stories and poetry that grapple with issues of identity, memory, environment, and mythology. Her work often lies on the border between the real and the strange, and she is interested in the intersections between the surreal and the natural world. She was a Fulbright Fellow to China and has had work published in the Pushcart Prize anthology, Tor.com, Electric Literature, Bennington Review, Day One, Nashville Review, The Offing, and other literary journals, and short stories translated into Italian and Chinese.

Keith S. Wilson is an Affrilachian Poet and a Cave Canem fellow. He is a recipient of an NEA Fellowship, an Elizabeth George Foundation Grant, and an Illinois Arts Council Agency Award, and has received both a Kenyon Review Fellowship and a Stegner Fellowship. His book, Fieldnotes on Ordinary Love (Copper Canyon), was recognized by the New York Times as a best new book of poetry.

Edo Rosenblith (B. 1988 Tel Aviv, Israel) received a BFA in painting in 2011 at the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA in Visual Art at Washington University-St. Louis in 2017. Edo is a compulsive draftsman who works in a variety of mediums: murals, painting, drawing, printmaking, and book arts.

Kelsey Harrison’s sculptural work has been shown in institutions nationally including The Jewish Museum, Abrons Art Center, and The Knockdown Center in New York, SOMArts in San Francisco, The Sullivan Galleries in Chicago, The College of William and Mary in Virginia, and the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art and the Utah Museum of Fine Art in Salt Lake City. Harrison received her BFA in Sculpture from Purchase College, State University of New York and her MFA in Sculpture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is Assistant Professor of Sculpture at the University of Memphis.

Brittney Boyd Bullock, an artist working in fiber, mixed-media, and abstraction, explores the tension between searching and finding, obsession and order, and lightness and darkness through two- and three-dimensional forms. Contemplative and personal, the process-driven works interrogate anxiety and wonder using materials in a new way, forcing her to make meaning in the arbitrary jumble.

Jennifer Sargent makes intricate drawings and handwoven tapestries. As an artist weaver she considers herself both a contemporary practitioner and a part of a longer continuum that is thousands of years old. This idea is both a comfort and a challenge. One of two elements is always present in Sargent’s work, either story telling or the natural world (whether wild or domesticated). Sargent creates an abstracted sense of these ideas or experiences through the layering of pattern and color.

Strictly Jazz: The Music of Bill Evans

Crosstown Arts presents Strictly Jazz: The Music of Bill Evans in the Green Room.

The Green Room at Crosstown Arts
Sunday, March 26, 2023
Doors at 6:30 pm | Show at 7 pm
Tickets: $15 in advance | $20 at the door

PURCHASE TICKETS HERE

The Crosstown Strictly Jazz Series, presented by Strictly Jazz Entertainment in collaboration with Crosstown Arts, is designed to salute classic jazz music as contemporary musicians perform the work of the legends.

This show features Gerald Stephens (piano), Art Edmaiston (tenor saxophone), Marc Franklin (trumpet/flugelhorn), Neal Bowen (bass), and Mike Assad (drums) with a special live painting experience by RODAN.

About Strictly Jazz:

Strictly Jazz Entertainment is committed to cultivating a growing community in the knowledge and appreciation of jazz. Strictly Jazz Entertainment facilitates dialogue and collaboration between the devoted supporters of jazz and the brand new constituents — those new to the genre — for the furthering of the jazz community. Strictly Jazz provides a bridge between leading artists and a community that typically does not embrace jazz by promoting concerts in various venues to generate an atmosphere that is viable for the absorption of pure jazz.

Deepstaria Enigmatica

Crosstown Arts presents Deepstaria Enigmatica: Memphibians Rising from the Mud, Making Musical Moods in the Green Room.

The Green Room at Crosstown Arts
Saturday, March 11, 2023
Doors at 7 pm | Show at 7:30 pm
Tickets: $15 advance | $20 at the door

PURCHASE TICKETS HERE

Deepstaria Enigmatica is a quintet of improvisers from Memphis, Tennessee, dedicated to creating otherworldly soundscapes. Named for a rarely seen, bell-shaped jellyfish discovered by Jacques Cousteau, the group’s every note is inspired by that famous ocean explorer’s sense of discovery. But don’t assume the five veteran musicians create only chaos: they are as attuned to melodies and harmonies as they are to fine gradations of noise. What emerges with each extemporaneous performance can range from dark swirls of frenetic fury, to interplanetary hard bop, to sunlit, ambient dreamscapes punctuated with snatches of folk song.

The diverse experience of the players sets the tone for their deep dives:

David Collins is the composer and guitarist behind Frog Squad, a Memphis group who have blended jazz improvisation with visionary music as disparate as that of Horace Silver and Erik Satie; he’s equally at home playing simple, unfettered guitar lines or rocking, effects-drenched rave ups.

Chad Fowler played alto saxophone with both Frank Lowe and George Cartwright in the 1990s, and now teams up with the likes of William Parker, Kidd Jordan, Ivo Perelman, Zoh Amba, Matthew Shipp, or Brian Blade for music released on the Mahakala Music label; in Deepstaria Enigmatica, he also plays bass flute and an Otamatone portable synthesizer.

Keyboardist Alex Greene first studied musique concrète and computer synthesis with composer Judy Klein in the 1980s, before playing in a variety of Memphis groups ranging from Alex Chilton to Big Ass Truck to Reigning Sound, not to mention over twenty years of work with New York composer Dave Soldier; now he improvises with multiple keyboards simultaneously, including a vintage Roland Juno-106.

Since completing his jazz studies at the University of Memphis in 2016, drummer Jon Harrison has cast a wide stylistic net with the groups he’s joined, which include the Southern Comfort Jazz Orchestra, Frog Squad, Hope Calyburn’s Soul Scrimmage, Joe Austin, Roderick Duran, PXLS, and the Church Brothers.

Bassist Khari Wynn, best known as the guitarist for hip hop sensations Public Enemy, regularly tests more unorthodox waters with groups such as Energy Disciples, often under the name Mysterioso Africano.

Together, these five musos cohere with a surprising unity of purpose, as their listening and playing gel into what often sound like prepared compositions. Sharing an uncanny telepathy, they transport listeners to new worlds of musical possibility.

RoSaWay

Crosstown Arts presents RoSaWay in the Green Room.

The Green Room at Crosstown Arts
Thursday, May 4, 2023
Doors open at 7 pm | Show begins at 7:30 pm
Tickets: $15 in advance | $20 at the door

PURCHASE TICKETS HERE

Vocal, flute, drums, & machines — that’s ROSAWAY: a pop-jazz band hailing from Paris. Distinctly French, somewhat theme-tune-style, and a whole lot of groovy, this duo is a blend of past and present.

Founding members Rachel Ombredane and Stéphane Avellaneda have some serious weight behind them. Rachel studied classical flute and music at the Sorbonne and sang vocals for artists, including Ed Sheeran. SteF is an internationally renowned blues drummer who’s played with and for the likes of BB King, Ben Poole, and Ana Popovic.

“The care given to image and sound shows an artistic maturity, a taste for innovation associated with an innate sense of melody and arrangements,” — Rolling Stone

Rachel received her Bachelor of Music in Flute Performance, a Diploma in Music Education, and a Masters in Musicology at the Sorbonne in Paris and later pursued vocal studies. Rachel is passionate about many musical genres. Thus, her music career has extended into numerous avenues, including TV performances singing with international artists such as Ed Sheeran, Jain, Brocken Back, etc., and in prestigious venues such as the Zenith in Paris.

SteF is a drummer and international touring artist. He started his professional journey as part of the band Mercy and later collaborated with Serbian guitarist Ana Popovic. He became her official drummer and has toured worldwide to over 30 countries. He has played with: Carlos Johnson, Ben Poole, and Robyn Bennett… and shared the stage with musicians such as Jonny Lang, BB King, Keb Mo, and Buddy Guy. Stef was voted as one of the TOP 5 Blues Drummers by the ”Drummies” award 2015. SteF played with several artists such as Ben Poole (UK), Carlos Johnson (USA), Robyn Bennett (USA-FR), MontparnassE (FR), Marko Balland (FR), Vinnie’s Vice (NL) and many more.