Crosstown Arts Film Series presents WINGS OF DESIRE
2023-03-02 19:00 - 21:30 (America/Chicago) | Crosstown Theater
The Crosstown Arts Film Series presents WINGS OF DESIRE at Crosstown Theater.
WIM WENDERS / 1987 / 128 minutes / PG-13
Tickets: $5 at the door
Doors at 6:30 p.m. | Films begin at 7:00 p.m. (sharp!) at Crosstown Theater
Wings of Desire is one of cinema’s loveliest city symphonies. Bruno Ganz is Damiel, an angel perched atop buildings high over Berlin who can hear the thoughts — fears, hopes, dreams — of all the people living below. But when he falls in love with a beautiful trapeze artist, he is willing to give up his immortality and come back to earth to be with her. Made not long before the fall of the Berlin wall, this stunning tapestry of sounds and images, shot in black and white and color by the legendary Henri Alekan, is movie poetry. And it forever made the name Wim Wenders synonymous with film art.
The Crosstown Arts Film Series showcases a diverse collection of independent, international, historically significant, artistic, experimental, cult, underground, and documentary features.

Jazz Month Kick Off with Central High School Big Band
2023-03-03 18:00 - 19:30 | Central Atrium
The Central Atrium
Friday, March 3, 2023
Show begins at 6 pm
Tickets: Free
Founded in 1909 and known as “THEE” high school because Central was the first High School in Memphis, the bandprogram was vital to the school culture from its inception. The award-winning Memphis Central High School Jazz Bandhas been in existence for many years and has produced many talented musicians such as pianist James Williams, saxophonist Gary Topper, pianist Dr. Ashley Davis. The band has been the winner of the University of Memphis JazzBand festival as well as Jazz Festivals in St. Louis; Mobile, AL; in Disney World; and others around the mid-South. Central High SchoolJazz Band students are routinely members of the West Tennessee School Band and Orchestra Association’s All-West Jazz Band as well as Tennessee’s All-State Jazz Band. The Jazz Band was selected, through a blind peer review process as a finalist for the 2014, 2015, 2017, and 2019 Savannah Swing Central National Jazz BandCompetition in Savannah, GA. The band won the Jean Faircloth award and first place in 2019. In 2020, The Memphis Central High School Jazz band was named finalist for the 25 th and 26 th Annual Essentially Ellington Competition and Festival. More recently, the jazzband was selected and performed at the 2022 Tennessee Music Educators State Conference and the 2023 Jazz Education Network International Conference. The Jazz band is one of several performing ensembles in the Central High band program which includes marching band, wind ensemble, symphonic band, concert band, pep band, percussion ensemble, as well as other small chamber ensembles.

Patrice Williamson, Jenna McLean, and Deborah Swiney
2023-03-03 19:30 - 21:00 | The Green Room
Crosstown Arts presents Patrice Williamson, Jenna McLean, and Deborah Swiney with the Michael Shults Quartet in the Green Room.
The Green Room at Crosstown Arts
Friday, March 3, 2023
Doors open at 7 pm | Show begins at 7:30 pm
Tickets: $15 in advance | $20 at the door | $10 student tickets available
PURCHASE TICKETS HERE
Three of the most legendary women in jazz unite for one special performance, backed up by the Michael Shults Quartet.
PATRICE WILLIAMSON
Jazz Times magazine states that “Patrice Williamson isn’t a singer, she’s a one-woman jazz sampler. – She is a woman of many voices, each distinctly intriguing all distinctly her own.”
Patrice Williamson’s childhood home in Memphis, Tennessee, was filled with song. Her late father, Webster Williamson, an avid amateur singer, choir director, and pillar of the St. Stephen’s Baptist Church music ministry, introduced his children to both sacred music and the secular styles of greats like Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, and Lena Horne. With the encouragement of her mother, Lillie Rivers Williamson, Patrice followed in the footsteps of her elder sister, Denise, taking up the violin and making her debut at age four. From then on, she was hooked on music and performing.
A favorite of the Boston music scene, Patrice’s sensitive ballad work and fluent scat style have garnered invitations to perform at the famed Blue Note Jazz club in New York City, and with many well-known instrumentalists such as Danilo Perez, Joe Lovano and Terri Lyne Carrington. As a Professor of Voice at Berklee College of Music, her work has taken her to Perugia, Italy, Seoul, South Korea, Peru and India, where she performed with saxophonist Donald Harrison in the New Delhi Jazz Festival.
Her independent recordings, My Shining Hour and Free to Dream, have received high praise from jazz critics around the country. In 2014 Patrice started The Ella Project, a multi-faceted tribute leading up to Ella Fitzgerald’s 100th birthday, including a concert series, biographical performance, and recordings, including Comes Love, an album celebrating the collaboration between Fitzgerald and legendary guitarist Joe Pass.
JENNA MCLEAN
Jenna McLean is a jazz vocalist and Lecturer in Music and Entertainment at the University of Memphis Lambuth in Jackson, Tennessee. As an accomplished performer, vocal technician, songwriter, and educator, she finds her artistic drive in bringing new twists to timeless standards of the Great American Songbook as well as pop, funk, and soul tunes. With a love and devotion for jazz, opera, R&B, and folk music, she maintains the belief that all music is good music as long as it speaks to the soul and grooves.
Jenna was the 2019 winner of the Downbeat Student Music Awards Graduate Vocal Soloist Category, and a 2019 recent recipient of the Pathways to Jazz Grant. She performs regularly at renowned Colorado Jazz Venues including Dazzle and Nocturne, and has performed and presented multiple times at the Jazz Education Network conference and the Five Points Jazz Festival in Denver. She has had the pleasure of performing alongside renowned musicians such as Bobby McFerrin, Aubrey Logan and the New York Voices, and also performs regularly with incredible Denver-based jazz musicians such as Steve Kovalcheck, Ben Markley, Eric Gunnison, Tom Amend, Dawn Clement, Annie Booth and others.
DEBORAH SWINEY
Deborah Swiney has definitely earned the title of a true chanteuse. Throughout her performance, you get to enjoy a trip back to Harlem to experience the iconic era of Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sarah Vaughn; you get to dance across the Great American Songbook; and you get to take a flight to Rio where you could close your eyes and imagine relaxing on a Copacabana or Ipanema beach. Being a Memphis native, you might even get a splash of blues.
In a city that loves its blues, rock, jazz, and gospel, Deborah has carved out a niche uniquely her own. This is evident with her highly praised co-produced debut album, I Remember Rio, a Brazilian-inspired album with “Memphis-Soul seasoning” (All about Jazz). I Remember Rio is filled with classic Bossa Nova standards and tunes written by the legendary Antonio Carlos Jobim as well as Deborah Swiney’s “Bossa Nova Casanova” and guitarist, Ed Finney’s title song, “I Remember Rio”. Jazz Weekly describes her as bringing “ a strong and Sarah Vaughan-esque voice to deliver soulful reads of Brazilian…” Transcending the standard definition of a Jazz songstress, her melodic and sultry approach to Bossa Nova and other Brazilian stylings are natural without betraying her Bluff City roots.

Charu Suri
2023-03-04 19:30 - 22:00 | The Green Room
Crosstown Arts presents Charu Suri in The Green Room.
The Green Room at Crosstown Arts
Saturday, March 4, 2023
Doors open at 7 pm | Show begins at 7:30 pm
Tickets: $20 ($10 students)
PURCHASE TICKETS HERE
“Charu’s raga-based improvisations are singular.” – Multi Grammy-award winning pianist Arturo O’Farrill
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.”
One of the few female composers from India to perform work at Carnegie Hall, Charu has lived in four continents, and writes music that reflect her journey as both a traveler and her training as a classical music piano prodigy. She has been playing the piano since the age of five, and performing since the age of nine, and one of her best memories is winning an international piano competition at the age of 15.
What started purely as an experiment with her “Book of Ragas” has turned into a niche that she is now increasingly becoming known for. Her latest album is RAGAS & WALTZES, a first collaboration between her and Preservation Hall’s jazz drummer, Joe Lastie.
In this album, dedicated to her late father, she explores European waltzes through her own jazz lens. The album also includes two ragas, performed by guitarist Noshir Mody and flutes by Al Jewer. RAGAS & WALTZES has received a lot of praise from critics. JAZZIZ Magazine has praised its classic reinvention of the European waltz, and All About Jazz said, “These are all Suri originals, with which she creates a mood that is a mix, tune-by-tune, of longing and solemnity, then of a lilting and uplifting beauty, segueing into tender reverence that shifts gear into a segment of lively swing before drifting back to loving respect. And that swing is surely inspired by New Orleans’ Preservation Hall Jazz Band’s drummer, Joe Lastie, Jr., sitting in the recording session’s drummer’s chair.”
But she is no stranger to the art of the Songbook too (attribute this to her listening to numerous records of Bill Evans and Billie Holiday as a kid). “The New American Songbook” has garnered many awards, including a “Band Single of the Year” crystal trophy for her song, Bluesy, awarded by the International Singer-Songwriters Association (ISSA) in 2021.
Charu has performed at Lincoln Center and other prestigious concert halls around the world, including St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. She often performs with her band, and sometimes as a soloist. She embarks on a multi-city RAGAS & WALTZES tour to India starting with a performance at the National Center for the Performing Arts (NCPA) in Mumbai, on September 16th.

Crosstown Arts Film Series presents THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE
2023-03-09 19:00 - 21:00 | Crosstown Theater
The Crosstown Arts Film Series presents THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE at Crosstown Theater.
Luis Buñuel / 1972 / 102 minutes / PG
Tickets: $5 at the door
Doors at 6:30 p.m. | Films begin at 7:00 p.m. (sharp!) at Crosstown Theater
In Luis Buñuel’s deliciously satiric masterpiece, an upper-middle-class sextet sits down to a dinner that is continually delayed, their attempts to eat thwarted by vaudevillian events both actual and imagined, including terrorist attacks, military maneuvers, and ghostly apparitions. Stringing together a discontinuous, digressive series of absurdist set pieces, Buñuel and his screenwriting partner Jean-Claude Carrière send a cast of European-film greats — including Fernando Rey, Stéphane Audran, Delphine Seyrig, Jean-Pierre Cassel, and Bulle Ogier — through a maze of desire deferred, frustrated, and interrupted. The Oscar-winning pinnacle of Buñuel’s late-career ascent as a feted maestro of the international art house, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is also one of his most gleefully radical assaults on the values of the ruling class.
The Crosstown Arts Film Series showcases a diverse collection of independent, international, historically significant, artistic, experimental, cult, underground, and documentary features.

Peter Bernstein with the Ted Ludwig Trio
2023-03-14 19:30 - 22:00 | The Green Room
Crosstown Arts presents Modern Masters: Peter Bernstein with the Ted Ludwig in The Green Room.
The Green Room at Crosstown Arts
Tuesday, March 14, 2023
$25 | $20 in advance ($10 student tickets at the door)
Doors open at 7 pm | Show begins at 7:30 pm
PURCHASE TICKETS HERE
​​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.
“Peter’s an extremely elegant musician with a gorgeous tone that seems to relax you when you hear it.” – The Jazz Bakery, Los Angeles
“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

The Otis Mission
2023-03-17 19:30 - 21:00 | The Green Room
Crosstown Arts presents The Otis Mission in the Green Room.
The Green Room at Crosstown Arts
Friday, March 17, 2023
Doors open at 7 pm | Show begins at 7:30 pm
Tickets: $15 in advance | $20 at the door ($10 students)
PURCHASE TICKETS HERE
The Otis Mission is led by veteran drummer and prominent Memphis musician, James Otis Sexton.
While James is widely known as a versatile drummer, having performed, toured, or recorded with several world renowned and Grammy-winning artists, he is least known as a composer. For this reason, “The Otis Mission” was created, and it will solely perform James’ original musical compositions.
Because he’s performed in a plethora of musical genres including gospel, jazz, fusion, rhythm & blues, hip hop, salsa, and more, it’s no surprise that his music would reflect just that.
This promises to be a fun night of music and the inception of a new staple in Memphis music heritage.
This ensemble consists of James Sexton (drums), Tony Dickerson (keys), Alvie Givhan (keys), Deante Payne (mallets), Joe Restivo (guitar), and Ted Partin (bass).

(SOLD OUT!) SONGBIRDS: A Tribute to Women in Jazz
2023-03-21 19:30 - 22:00 | The Green Room
Crosstown Arts presents Stax Music Academy: SONGBIRDS: A Tribute to Women in Jazz in The Green Room.
The Green Room at Crosstown Arts
Tuesday, March 21, 2023
Doors at 7 pm | Show at 7:30 pm
Tickets: $10 GA (Free for SMA students and faculty)
PURCHASE TICKETS HERE
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. The music will speak to the strength, elegance, innovation, and devotion that women have embodied in the evolution across the diaspora of modern jazz music.
The Stax Music Academy jazz department, under the direction of SMA alumnus Kori Wallace, currently hosts three main ensembles. The premiere group, The Legacy Quintet, boldly carries the torch of Memphis’ rich musical history and features the program’s four top performing instrumentalists and top performing vocalist. Kind Of Blue, our jazz vocal ensemble, provides vocalists the opportunity to dive deeply into the nuances of the jazz language spoken by some of the greatest voices in American music. Lastly, we have the newly minted Phineas Newborn Jazz Orchestra. The PNJO shines a light on one of the titans of Memphis jazz, and creates the space for students to develop in large ensemble performance. The overall mission of the jazz department is to provide an environment for students to tap into the roots of Memphis music through its deep connection to jazz. Through that connection, students are also able to develop in their approaches to the many styles synonymous with this great city.

(SOLD OUT) Iron & Wine: Back to Basics – Part Three With Anna Mieke
2023-03-23 19:00 - 22:00 | Crosstown Theater
Crosstown Arts presents Iron & Wine: Back to Basics — Part Three with Anna Mieke at Crosstown Theater.
Crosstown Theater
Thursday, March 23, 2023
Doors at 6 pm | Show at 7 pm
Ticketing: $40-70
PURCHASE TICKETS HERE
Iron & Wine is the musical project of singer-songwriter Sam Beam. Born and raised in South Carolina, Beam was teaching film when his home recorded debut, The Creek Drank the Cradle, was released on Sub Pop records in 2002. Garnering both critical and popular acclaim, Beam was vaulted into the spotlight of the burgeoning indie-folk and Americana scenes. Now entering its 20th year, Iron & Wine have released seven full length recordings, numerous EPs / singles, and collaborations with Calexico, Ben Bridwell (Band of Horses) and Jesca Hoop all on their way to becoming a four-time GRAMMY nominee. Iron & Wine’s music has captured the emotion and imagination of listeners with their distinctly cinematic songs; in particular they’ve become synonymous with the movies Twilight and Garden State and continue to find a home in your favorite film, TV show or streaming playlist. As the world continues to spin — so do Iron & Wine continue on their path of releasing new music and touring.
Anna Mieke’s world radiates with an intense heat that lies closer to the desert or the jungle than her hometown of Wicklow, Ireland. On her second album Theatre, she invites listeners into this warmth, enveloping us in a vivid dreamscape that mirrors her lush and adventurous upbringing. Her music is the⁠ surreal soundtrack of a vast personal plain steeped in nostalgia, family, memory, death and dreaming—where gritty reality and romanticism meet. This duality is the thematic core of Theatre, which focuses on the conflict between permanence and temporality, the immaterial and material, and how memories of places and people fade, warp, and reinvent themselves over time.

Morgan James (SOLD OUT!)
2023-03-25 19:30 - 22:00 | The Green Room
Crosstown Arts presents Morgan James in The Green Room.
The Green Room at Crosstown Arts
Saturday, March 25, 2023
Doors: 7 pm | Show: 7:30 pm
VIP Entry at 6:15 pm | VIP meet-and-greet and performance at 6:30 pm
Tickets: $25 | VIP package available with additional $35
PURCHASE TICKETS HERE
“A phenomenal talent whose feel for classic soul music is bone deep…This woman is on fire.” — The New York Times
Morgan James is a Juilliard trained singer, actress, songwriter and recording artist in New York City.
Morgan recently co-produced and starred in an all-female concept recording of “Jesus Christ Superstar” entitled “She Is Risen”. She independently released her studio albums of original soul music, entitled Memphis Magnetic, and A Very Magnetic Christmas recorded to analog tape in Memphis, Tennessee. Other albums include “Reckless Abandon”, which prompted the Huffington Post to call MJ the “Brightest Breakout Artist of the Year”. Last year, Morgan took on a full album cover of the Beatles’ iconic ‘White Album’ to celebrate the 50th anniversary; available on CD, vinyl, digital and full length concept video on her YouTube channel. She also took on Joni Mitchell’s “Blue” and covered it in its entirety. Morgan recorded two full-length albums with Epic Records: “Hunter”, an album of original R&B, and “Morgan James Live, a celebration of Nina Simone”. All of her music can be found on all streaming platforms, and hard copies on her website or at shows.
On Broadway, Morgan was in five back-to-back original companies: The Addams Family (starring Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth), Wonderland, Godspell and Motown: The Musical, and as a guest at Kristin Chenoweth’s For The Girls.
With viral sensation Postmodern Jukebox and with her own YouTube channel, Morgan’s music videos have accumulated more than 260 million views (and climbing).
For info, tour tickets and new album updates, please visit www.morganjamesonline.com. @morganajames

Makaya McCraven
2023-03-28 19:30 - 21:30 | Crosstown Theater
Crosstown Arts presents Makaya McCraven at Crosstown Theater.
Crosstown Theater
Tuesday, March 28, 2023
Doors open at 6:30 pm | Show begins at 7:30 pm
Tickets: $25 advance | $30 day of the show
PURCHASE TICKETS HERE
Makaya McCraven is a prolific drummer, composer, and producer.
His newest album, In These Times, is the triumphant finale of a project seven-plus years in the making. It’s a preeminent addition to his already-acclaimed and extensive discography, and it’s the album he’s been trying to make since he started making records.
McCraven believes that the word “jazz” is “insufficient, at best, to describe the phenomenon we’re dealing with.” The artist, who has been aptly called a “cultural synthesizer”, has a unique gift for collapsing space, destroying borders and blending past, present, and future into poly-textural arrangements of post-genre, jazz-rooted 21st century folk music. Profiled in Vice, Rolling Stone, the Guardian, and NPR, among other publications, he and the music he makes today are at the very vanguard of that phenomenon. According to the New York Times, “McCraven has quietly become one of the best arguments for jazz’s vitality.” The artist explained to NPR in 2019, “I don’t think what I’m doing is necessarily that far off of the legacy of jazz that I grew up in … I think one of the things that gives it strength is that people want to argue over it. That’s a good sign. That means there’s life here.”
Born in Paris in the Autumn of 1983 to Hungarian singer and flutist Ágnes Zsigmondi and African-American expat jazz drummer Stephen McCraven, Makaya was raised in a vibrant, creative community in the Northampton, Massachusetts area, where his father often played with artists like saxophonist and ethnomusicologist Marion Brown, multi-instrumentalist Yusef Lateef, and saxophonist Archie Shepp, as well as a cadre of African Gnawa musicians. That scene, with its enticing blend of cultures, helped establish his philosophy around jazz as folk music. Meanwhile, his mother’s music blended Eastern European folk traditions, concurrently shaping his conceptions about the role of music in building and reflecting communities.
“I’m really drawn to folk music. Music of aural tradition, music that is of the people where it’s more of a collective experience of music and dance and culture that we all participate in and know as part of our being or as part of who we are.” He sees his work as a continuation of those traditions, noting, “I like to teach the music to musicians by ear, and hope even when I bring in more challenging rhythms, or difficult time signatures, I am able to do it in a way that is of the body and of the people of the earth in a way that’s not necessarily some intellectual experiment, but more something that’s dealing with people.”
While immersed as a youth in global folk traditions, he was also a child of the nineties, deeply influenced by sample-based hip-hop. He observed that jazz was sometimes perceived by his peers as “something that was old, corny, white… going to get you beat up.” This directly countered his own experience with the music: “That was such a strange idea to me, because the guys I grew up around were cool, and [weren’t] buttoned up like that.”
Eventually he discovered bridges between jazz and hip-hop, including classic jazz records being sampled by hip-hop producers such as Pete Rock, and began to devote energy to “reappropriate this music to be what it is, what it means to me, and what it means for my people.”
After cutting his teeth in the Western Massachusetts music scene, co-founding a jazz-hip hop band called Cold Duck Complex that ultimately opened for The Pharcyde, Digable Planets, and the Wu-Tang Clan, he and his partner (now wife, comparative race studies scholar Nitasha Tamar Sharma) moved to Chicago in 2006. McCraven soon found himself immersed in both the creative and straight-ahead jazz scenes, proving his versatility, and along the way finding a community that mirrored the pulsating scene that birthed him artistically. Within five years’ time, he’d established a name for himself, gigging alongside scene stalwarts like Willie Pickens, Marquis Hill and Jeff Parker.
He first connected with the founders of Chicago’s International Anthem label in late 2011, and across 2012-2013 they hosted and recorded a series of improvised jazz nights featuring his combo at The Bedford, a club situated in what was once an old basement bank vault. McCraven took 48 hours of recordings and sculpted beguiling hip-hop beats, not unlike how Teo Macero looped and assembled Miles Davis’ On the Corner from improvised magic. At the time, McCraven thought of the project, which became the 2015 double LP release In The Moment, as an opportunity to connect and to “find a young audience in this music. It just felt like the right time and a place where I could really connect with people.” That notion proved prophetic: JazzTimes called the album “one of the year’s most mesmerizing releases,” the record was an “Album of the Week” pick by taste-making DJ Gilles Peterson on BBC 6 Music, and it was chosen for “Best of 2015” lists by PopMatters, NPR, and the Los Angeles Times.
McCraven continued to hone his process of live improvisation and sampling with Highly Rare in 2017 (crafted from a live set recorded at Danny’s Tavern in Chicago), 2018’s Where We Come From(CHICAGOxLONDON Mixtape), which was built from recordings of a showcase at London’s Total Refreshment Centre, and Universal Beings (also released in 2018). Universal Beings, consisting of augmented live sessions in Chicago and New York, in addition to pop-up studio sessions in London and Los Angeles, concretely reflects his borderless multi-national ethos. The work featured varying configurations of international players, including Nubya Garcia and Shabaka Hutchings from London, Junius Paul and Tomeka Reid of Chicago, Anna Butterss and Miguel Atwood-Ferguson from Los Angeles, and Brandee Younger and Dezron Douglas from New York.
The title of the album was culled from a sampled passage on the track “Brighter Days Beginning,” in which percussionist Carlos Niño offers, “We’re universal beings,” a theme of borderlessness that resonated deeply with McCraven, who grew up in a multicultural household and community. “I’m not beholden to this border or this city,” McCraven told Vice in 2018, “What is a place? Other than the people. It’s just dirt, you know?” The resulting album was called “radiant” and “hypnotic” by Pitchfork.
In 2019, McCraven both delivered a triumphant Jazz Night in America performance at South Shore Cultural Center in Chicago, and mounted a multimedia performance of an early iteration of what became his new album In These Times, at the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis.
In the meantime, he remixed Gil Scott-Heron’s final album (2010’s I’m New Here) for 2020’s We’re New Again: A Reimagining by Makaya McCraven, issued Universal Beings E+F Sides(also in 2020), and delved into the venerable Blue Note Records catalog in 2021 for Deciphering the Message, each project also employing new improvisations and sampling, helping to further cement his “beat scientist” moniker. Concurrently, the seeds for 2022’sIn These Times were budding, and their nurseries were stages around the globe. McCraven explains, “As I’ve been touring, I’ve been performing music off of the record In These Times… When In the Moment took off and I started touring a lot, we would go on the road and 50% of the music was just my concept and my compositions.”
In These Times, a collection of polytemporal compositions inspired as much by broader cultural struggles as McCraven’s personal experience as a product of a multinational, working class musician community, is the recording that McCraven has been trying to create for 7+ years, as it’s been slowly cooking in the background while his other works were released. He began recording In These Times seven years ago, but “for whatever reason, Universal Beings just came to fruition much quicker. It just took more time for this to mature into everything it’s become. With the success of Universal Beings and the Universal Beings concerts that we did (with Red Bull) in Chicago at South Shore Cultural Center and le poisson rouge in New York, I had an opportunity to realize the record not as a collection of four sides of trios and quartets, but I turned that record as a performance into a 10 to 12-person concert, and that experience ended up evolving my approach to In These Times.”
In These Times encompasses all he’s lived through, as well as his lineage, while also pushing the music forward. Music critic Passion of the Weiss suggested that “McCraven’s work, both with younger players and the sounds of older recordings, is part of a necessary conversation about the next evolution of the Black improvised music known colloquially as ‘jazz.’ He’s found the threads connecting the past with the present, and is either wrapping them with new colors and textures, or he’s plucking them gleefully like the strings of a grand instrument.” McCraven concurs: “To me, that is the tradition that I want to try to take part in. Being well-rooted, but walking into the future, is really what all of the leaders in this music have done that I admire. And I think that resonates with people. Something that’s like how we know it, but is evolving… It’s just where I am at, where we’re at, and the evolution of that, and that’s what I’m trying to be.”

SpiralPhonics
2023-03-29 19:30 - 22:00 | The Green Room
The Green Room at Crosstown Arts
Wednesday, March 29, 2023
Doors open at 7 pm | Show begins at 7:30 pm
Tickets: $15 in advance | $20 at the door
PURCHASE TICKETS HERE
SpiralPhonics is an instrumental music trio founded in 2021 by saxophonist Art Edmaiston, guitarist Logan Hanna and percussionist Terence F. Clark. The musical direction of the group focuses on original compositions and improvisations woven together using the energy of the moment. October 2022 marked the release of their debut live album “The Argot Session” and the band is currently working on new music for an upcoming studio recording.
Melodic twists and churning rhythms challenge the listener to open the lens of expectation and allow themselves to be transported through the air on surging spikes of energy freely flowing into funky cascades of textural grooves and harmonic surprises.
Inspiration – Vibrations – Reflections – Intention
For this concert in the Green Room at Crosstown Arts, SpiralPhonics will give a rare performance as an expanded quartet.
Joining Edmaiston and Hanna for this show is the phenomenal PeeWee Jackson on drums with fiery up-and-coming bassist Liam O’dell rounding out the quartet. SpiralPhonics is a musical group drawing from a deep well of influences and experiences. The members are always open to the unlimited possibilities of the moment and that is what makes each performance special and not to be missed!

Blurbs:
“Extra, extra! Read all about it! Irresistible force of Downtown Free Improv collides with immovable object of Memphis pocket!” – Charlie Hunter / Artist; Producer
“This shiet snuggly fye mane!” – MonoNeon / Bassist; Artist
“Bro, this album ain’t an album. It is a soundbath. It’s a journey around the world. I meditate to it.” – Propaganda / HipHop Artist; Author; Writer
“From fiery jazz to deep ambient beauty to the funkiest soul music, this music captures the sound and essence of Memphis in a fashion only made possible by a group of some of its most respected and skilled artists from the past two decades. Deeply emotional, raw, and sometimes even danceable; inspiring sounds from the South.” – Chad Fowler / Mahakala Music

The Bad Plus & Marc Ribot and the Jazz Bins
2023-03-30 19:30 - 22:00 | Crosstown Theater
Crosstown Arts presents The Bad Plus & Marc Ribot and the Jazz Bins at Crosstown Theater.
Crosstown Theater
Thursday, March 30, 2023
Doors open at 6:30 pm | Show begins at 7:30 pm
Tickets: $35-45
PURCHASE TICKETS HERE
The Bad Plus
Reid Anderson (bass), Dave King (drums), Ben Monder (guitar), Chris Speed (saxophone)
The Bad Plus are the ultimate originals. A democratic unit with a clear vision and a refusal to conform to convention. For the past two decades they have played with spirit and adventure, made their own rules and done so with a bold sense of creativity and intent. Avoiding easy categorization, The Bad Plus has won critical acclaim and a legion of fans worldwide with their unique sound and flair for live performance.
Now in their 21st year, The Bad Plus continues to push boundaries as founding members Reid Anderson (bass) and Dave King (drums) embark on a new piano-less incarnation of the band with Ben Monder (guitar) and Chris Speed (tenor saxophone) – instigating a new wave of excitement and anticipation within the band that is re-energizing their sound and inspiration. The Bad Plus have constantly searched to bridge genres and techniques while exploring the infinite possibilities of exceptional musicians working in perfect sync.
The Bad Plus is set to release their 15th studio recording and debut self-titled album as a dynamic new quartet via Edition Records on Friday, September 30th. “Evolution is necessary for life and creativity,” say Dave King and Reid Anderson. “We’ve evolved, but we’re still The Bad Plus.”
Marc Ribot & The Jazz Bins
Marc Ribot (guitar), Greg Lewis (organ), Joe Dyson (drums)
Marc Ribot’s four months with jazz organ legend Brother Jack McDuff were his first ever with an internationally touring artist. Their 1979 itinerary included Ribot’s first concerts in Europe, and his only to date in Gary, Indiana and Rochester, NY. Although the two never recorded together (due to artistic differences that became apparent in Ribot’s later work…Brother Jack reportedly spent much of their stage time fixing Ribot with what side musicians referred to as his “death ray”), Ribot never lost his affection for McDuff’s music and the Hammond organ dominated Soul Jazz scene from which it emerged. Says Ribot: “McDuff’s US audiences—the so-called ‘Chitlin Circuit— were just the hippest in the world: sophisticated about the music, definitely…but also demanding the deepest soul while rewarding restraint in its expression. What this brought out in the musicians was every bit as intense as the music taking shape at CBGBs at the time. In fact, I always felt the two scenes had something in common, and I’ve been trying to express exactly what ever since.”
Fellow Jazz-Bin, Greg Lewis, is not only one of the greatest virtuosos of the Hammond b3 organ alive, but perhaps the only one willing and able to haul a real Hammond b3 and Leslie speaker cabinet to live gigs in NYC! Says Ribot: “Greg is NYC’s best kept secret. He can tell a story on the Hammond like nobody else.” Rounded out with a TBA guest drummer, The Jazz-Bins use deep grooves and over the top improvisation to channel the spirits of Newark’s Key Club Sparky J’s Lounge, and NYC’s CBGB’s c/a 1977 into a quest for punk/soul salvation. The Jazz-Bins go— not exactly ‘ancient’, but ‘back’— to the future, to tap into a scene that never really existed (but should have, will, and does whenever people drop their preconceptions about ‘genre’ long enough to feel the groove), and a vibe that never really stopped. Dig it!
New Orleans native Joe Dyson has certainly been one to watch. He started playing music in his family’s church at just two years old. After being noticed for his peculiar talent, Joe was placed in the Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong Summer Jazz Camp where he was shadowed by the late, great clarinetist Alvin Batiste, and his longtime band leader and mentor, alto saxophonist Donald Harrison. He went on to graduate from the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA), and earned a Presidential Scholarship to his alma mater Berklee College of Music.
Joe has shared the stage with Dr. Lonnie Smith, Ellis Marsalis, Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, Jon Batiste, Leo Nocentelli, Sullivan Fortner, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Pedrito Martinez, Grammy Award winners Nicholas Payton and Pat Metheny among others.
