Arts Events

Cozy up in the Gemstones’ living room as Alexis Jade debuts new songs from her forthcoming LP, provisionally titled Dreaming on Company Time. The performance looks back on the miles covered while touring on the tailwinds of 2022’s With Love, Alexis Jade. The intervening years have brought many hallmarks of life lived out of a suitcase: borrowed couches, shared meals, porch sitting sessions, and often, as the title song suggests, “miles and miles of heartache.” A homecoming in multiple regards, the show will open with a performance from Nashville-based singer-songwriter Sierra Bryan, who was on tour with Jade at the time many of these previously-unreleased songs came knocking.

Yotam Silberstein, one of the leading jazz guitarists of his generation, has gained acclaim for a sound rich in bebop and blues as well as musical folklore from South America, North Africa and the Middle East, giving his music an increasingly global thrust. His mature compositional gift and gripping interpretive finesse are vividly represented on his 2022 release Universos and his 2020 outing with Argentine multi-instrumentalist and composer Carlos “Negro” Aguirre titled En el jardín. He is a member of the John Patitucci Trio (heard on the acclaimed album Irmãos de Fé), has toured extensively with legendary Brazilian singer-songwriter Ivan Lins, and played with characteristic fire and taste on Monty Alexander’s GRAMMY-nominated Harlem-Kingston Express Live! as well as David Sanborn & Marcus Miller’s Time and the River.

Marisa Anderson channels the history of the guitar and stretches the boundaries of tradition. Her playing is fluid, emotional, and masterful, featuring compositions and improvisations that re-imagine the landscape of American music. The New Yorker calls Anderson ‘one of the most distinctive guitar players of her generation’, and NPR refers to her as among ‘this era’s most powerful players’. Her music has been featured in Rolling Stone, NPR, The New York Times, Pitchfork, the BBC and The Wire. Festival appearances include Big Ears, Pitchfork Midwinter, Le Guess Who and the Copenhagen Jazz Festival.

Crosstown Arts and Memphis Jazz Workshop are proud to present in live concert Guggenheim Fellow and drums luminary Jeff “Tain” Watts. Tain spent his formative years with Wynton & Branford Marsalis and his writing skills now command equal attention, highlighted by a 2017 Guggenheim Fellowship in Music Composition. Watts has recorded and toured with George Benson, Harry Connick Jr, Kenny Garrett, Michael Brecker, Kenny Kirkland, Courtney Pine, Geri Allen, Alice & Ravi Coltrane, Greg Osby, McCoy Tyner, Steve Coleman & Fort Apache.