Crosstown Arts, The Green Room

Soul/jazz/funk sax player and vocalist Hope Clayburn is on a mission to move the people. Her unique style has allowed her to perform with an eclectic mix of artists around the world, including The Temptations, The Allman Brothers Band, and Valerie June.

Hope can be found in Memphis, Tennessee, recording and performing with a variety of bands like Lucky 7 Brass Band, Frog Squad, Marcella Simien, and Obruni Dance Band. She has her own funk soul ensemble, Hope Clayburn’s Soul Scrimmage, performing her original music. Their new single and music video “Nobody” is out now on YouTube, and their new album and vinyl record Y’all So Loud is coming this December.

Ho, ho, ho here they come, come, come! The Sissy Dicks are home for the holigays, playing their first Memphis show in over a year at The Green Room at Crosstown Arts! Four-time Grammy ineligible, nationally tolerated, and locally endured, they're the queer country that no one asked for, but that your single uncle Richard definitely listens to alone in his truck after choir practice. Come on out and get your stocking absolutely stuffed at the xxxmessiest spectacle of the season and find out why The Sissy Dicks are on everyone's prayer list!

Memphis-based, Arkansas-born singer-songwriter Mark Edgar Stuart performs a very special concert with Blueshift Ensemble, a Memphis-based contemporary chamber music ensemble dedicated to bringing artists and audiences together through artistic collaboration.

Kortland Whalum returns to The Green Room for an evening of sophisticated style and music. Kortland is an intriguing, bold performer, whose repertoire includes original compositions and covers of classic jazz, soul, and R&B tunes. Kortland, the product of an age of popular and gospel music, is a storyteller, blessed with the power to marshal all at once a batch of skills that includes timing, phrasing, pronunciation and acting ability to make the listener feel myriad emotions, particularly on ballads. Spend an evening with Kortland, where he shares his life, his story, and his voice.

Lukah has set himself apart as a powerful voice in Memphis hip-hop. Whatever the format—whether it’s through sellout records, acclaimed locally in The Commercial Appeal and nationally in NPR, Bandcamp Daily, and The New York Times; commanding live performances that have won audiences in The United States and Europe; or on the big screen in his three visual collaborations with Studio 143, all selected by the Indie Memphis Film Festival—Lukah is a undeniable giant of deep, meaningful storytelling.

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

John Scofield’s guitar work has influenced jazz since the late 70’s and is going strong today. Possessor of a very distinctive sound and stylistic diversity, Scofield is a masterful jazz improviser whose music generally falls somewhere between post-bop, funk-edged jazz, and R&B.

Longtime Memphis musician Paul Taylor is returning home to play his first show back in the Bluff City in over three and a half years!

He’s bringing his brand new band, Three Springs, along with him all the way down from his new home of Door County, Wisconsin, to help him perform material he’s written during those last few years, which has been greatly inspired by the vastly different northern environment.

Ellisa Sun cuts her heart out and leaves it on the stage, which is why she never wears white. Inspired primarily by R&B, soul, jazz, and bossa nova, Ellisa’s music is a unique blend of genres that creates a textured sound with authentic, heartfelt lyricism.

Marcella Simien founded and serves as bandleader in Marcella & Her Lovers — a hybrid of classic Memphis soul with the freewheeling swagger of New Orleans funk. Featuring an ensemble cast of Memphis musicians, Simien emerges as an undeniably powerful frontwoman. With each angelic holler and pump of the Creole accordion, she reinvents the mold of Memphis music while giving a wink and a nod to her ancestors. In addition to Marcella & Her Lovers, Simien performs with Marcella & Les Vagues, Magnolias, and Terrance Simien's Krewe De Monifique.