Tag: Crosstown Arts

Categories
Music Music Features

Todd Snider on Cutting His Teeth in Memphis

Todd Snider

Memphis is known for its sound, but which sound you consider that to be is all over the map. There are the historic sounds of Sun and Stax. There are the many variations of the trap sound that rose to world popularity this century, Young Dolph being exhibit A. Then there are the punk sounds, from the Oblivions through Jay Reatard and beyond, making their mark. But then there are the songwriters, who often combine more intricate lyrics with a full-throttle band’s wallop. Of the latter genre, Todd Snider is a prime example.

Snider is not a Memphis native and has been based in Nashville for many years, but living in the Bluff City in the ’90s marked him in ways that he carries to this day. “I’ve got a ton of friends down there,” he says. “What you call ‘cutting your teeth,’ I cut mine at the Daily Planet. And all around, all up and down Highland. Keith Sykes got me my first record contract. He was like a life coach at that time. Not only did he help me with making songs and melodies, he taught me about time, tempo.”

Memphis, it turned out, introduced young Snider to the mysteries of rhythm and groove, after he moved here from Austin. “I came to Memphis from Texas, where it was all about lyrics,” Snider recalls. “Keith and others showed me how to have the Booker T. sound as a benchmark: bass and drums and playing in time. I didn’t even know there was a way to play in time or out of time until I got to Memphis. The whole town is in the pocket.”

All those lessons came out in force with the release of his last record, First Agnostic Church of Hope and Wonder (Aimless), which delves into funk more than any of his other works. “That was a fun project. I was using old Memphis records as models. The drummer Robbie Crowell and I would both listen to old beats and things. Soul and funk grooves. And I think we got away with it for the most part.”

Another aspect of the album was trying his hand at all the parts himself, except the drums. “I always wanted to make an album where I play all the instruments. And since there was a pandemic, I had a good excuse. I couldn’t just call a better guitar player. And I got to play bass!” All told, he plays electric bass, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, banjo, and piano, and sang all the backing vocals. The end result is not unlike the arrangements of songwriters like early Beck or Ani DiFranco, but it bears Snider’s own distinctive lyrical stamp. His trademark wit and the teeth of his most politically charged work is still there in full force.

Alongside songs like the funky, spoken/sung environmental wake up call, “That Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” there are more quiet moments, like the piano ballad honoring John Prine, “Handsome John,” or the wistful “Sail On, My Friend.” Others revel in off-the-cuff lyrical riffs, as in “Stoner Yodel Number One,” or a sardonic preacherly prayer to God, the funky closer “The Resignation vs. The Comeback Special.”

“When I started, I only had the song ‘Sail On’ and one about John Prine. And the rest, I just had to come up with stuff. So I just made up the last two songs quickly. The last song’s my favorite, and I don’t think I would have been able to come up with that unless I felt I was doing a concept album or something. [laughs] I always compare it to when WASP did a concept record. Or like when Kiss did The Elder [laughs].” Snider even has a name for the recurring preacher character. “We call him Willy B. Wasted.”

This week, Snider will appear at the Crosstown Theater. “I’m gonna play five or six songs. I used to have this band called the Nervous Wrecks, and two of those guys still live in Memphis. And Will Kimbrough, who was also in the band, is coming to open the show. So we’re going to work up eight or nine songs as a full band, and then we’ll wing the encore. We had so much fun with the Nervous Wrecks. I miss it sometimes. Lots of times. I still really, really enjoy this job.”

Todd Snider plays the Crosstown Theater on Friday, February 4, and Saturday, February 5, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets start at $38. Visit crosstownarts.org for details.

Categories
Music Music Blog

With a Single Guitar, Marc Ribot Levitates Crosstown Concourse

Marc Ribot live at The Green Room. He never touched the guitar on the stand. (Credit: Alex Greene)

“Whew!” was the general response in the crowd as guitarist Marc Ribot sounded his last note of the night and disappeared backstage. Eyes wide with amazement, the audience seemed to be emerging from a roller coaster ride, and indeed they had, after a fashion. Ribot had just taken us on a mystery tour of his weathered Gibson acoustic (possibly a pre-War model) and every musical method he could muster to coax sound from it.

Most know the guitarist for his work as a session and side man with the likes of Tom Waits, Caetano Veloso, John Zorn, Jack McDuff, Wilson Pickett, The Lounge Lizards, Arto Lindsay, T-Bone Burnett, Medeski, Martin and Wood, Cibo Matto, Elvis Costello, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Susana Baca, The Black Keys, Elton John, Madeleine Peyroux, Marianne Faithfull, Diana Krall, Allen Toussaint, and Robert Quine. But he’s led his own groups for over 30 years as well.

The music he played last Saturday in The Green Room was closest in spirit to the free jazz he typically creates with his group Ceramic Dog. But while that trio certainly casts a wide, anarchic net, the variety of music evoked at his most recent Memphis performance was even more inclusive. It ran like a dream one must have to fully process a day of travel, skipping from scene to scene, and in that sense, encompassed some very lyrical and folk passages that were downright traditional. Yet no style or melody was allowed to linger for long, as Ribot’s restless creativity soon replaced it with another musing.

From the start, the musical quotes seemed to fit Memphis, and perhaps the show really was Ribot’s way of processing his visit here. Opening with a quiet folk melody and chords reminiscent of “Shenandoah,” he quickly moved to more dissonant territory, while somehow still incorporating quotes from “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.”

One might consider him a master of the guitar, both acoustic and electric, but he speaks more of his limitations than his talents. As he told Guitar Player magazine in 1997, he’s been handicapped to a degree by having learned to play with his right hand, despite being left handed. “That’s a real limit, one that caused me a lot of grief when I was working with Jack McDuff and realizing I wasn’t following in George Benson’s footsteps. I couldn’t be a straight-ahead jazz contender if you held a gun to my head.”

Yet that same limitation has somehow caused Ribot to approach the guitar almost like a pianist. Multiple melodies wove around each other, as he sounded the low, middle, and high strings nearly independently, creating stunning counterpoint and chordal accompaniments.

At times, you’d hear echoes of other projects he’s led. After one far-ranging flurry of improvisation, he noted that parts of it referenced Marc Ribot Plays Solo Guitar Works of Frantz Casseus, a 1993 album of solo guitar works written by the Haitian-American composer. Other portions evoked his work with Los Cubanos Postizos, comprised of Cuban music, or other eclectic world music sources, including echoes of Bahamian folk singer Joseph Spence.

Other portions were more closely related to John Cage’s music for cacti or other such “outside of the box” works, as when he simply drummed on the guitar body or frailed the fret board with rhythmic abandon. The audience remained galvanized, The Green Room being a perfect venue for those who show up to listen deeply.

Memphis seemed to creep into the journey more directly as well, including bluesy quotes (a snatch of “Blue Monk”?) that would have felt at home on Beale Street, or passages that alluded to standards like “Come Rain or Come Shine.” But Memphis also cropped up in the few sparse comments he made between performances. “Thank you,” he said. “I’m very glad to be back in Memphis. This very room was the last gig I did before the shutdown almost two years ago. So I’m glad to be here. In fact, I’m glad to be anywhere.” Judging from the roaring applause that brought him out for an encore, Memphis music fans were glad as well.

Categories
Music Music Blog

Iris Artist Fellows Bring Diverse Cello/Violin Duets to Green Room

Cellist Gabriel Hightower and violinist Pedro Maia (Photo courtesy Iris Orchestra)

When violinist Pedro Maia and cellist Gabriel Hightower take the stage at The Green Room at Crosstown Arts tomorrow evening, they’ll finally be able to exhale. Named as the 2021-22 Iris Artist Fellows months ago, they’ve since faced an uncertain year ahead as the pandemic altered performance and educational expectations again and again. But now their work is at last coming to its fruition.

Performing as the Iris Artist Fellows Ensemble, Maia and Hightower will reveal how they’ve perfected playing as a duo, with a diverse set spanning the French avant-garde, Brazilian dance and traditional classical. All pieces were curated especially for the intimate listening space of The Green Room. 

The Iris Artist Fellowship Program, now in its sixth year, is a 10-month full-time residency position that mixes professional training with instruction, in-the-field experience, and networking opportunities. The program is designed to assist rising Black, African American, or Latino musicians who are about to embark on their professional careers in classical music. 

“We designed the fellowship to help bridge a gap in the classical music world,” Iris Orchestra Artistic Director Michael Stern said. “We are looking for not only skilled classical musicians but also those musicians who have a real passion for music as a tool to impact society. Our fellows participate in community engagement programs that impact the Greater Memphis community, particularly those that promote education, mentorship, and social equity.”

Each of the program’s eight alumni has gone on to pursue a full-time career in the classical music industry. “We’re pleased to be a part of the journey for these talented and dedicated musicians,” said Rebecca Arendt, director of the Iris Artist Fellowship. “We’ve learned a lot and that knowledge has helped to refine and evolve the program, and we’re thrilled we’ve been able to continue it — even during the pandemic year — thanks to our supporters and our partner, Memphis Music Initiative.”

Maia and Hightower have embraced the teaching and performing fellowship with gusto. In addition to performing with Iris Orchestra in October, they performed as a duo at a pop-up concert in the Memphis Medical District, a music time event for Memphis Oral School for the Deaf, and a Halloween family concert at the Morton Museum in Collierville. The fellows also work in the Shelby County Schools as teaching artists with the Memphis Music Initiative (MMI).

“In Memphis, we enjoy a rich musical history and heritage; we’re known for it around the world,” said Mike Mosby, fellows coach for MMI. “But there’s not a lot of emphasis on the string or orchestra instruments in the schools. Our partnership with the Iris Artist Fellows has allowed our Black and brown students to work with and to learn from skilled musicians who look like them. Working with Pedro and Gabriel on my team is a privilege, and we’re grateful for the rich experience they provide to these kids.”

The Iris Artist Chamber Concert featuring the Iris Artist Fellows Ensemble takes place Thursday, November 11th, at The Green Room at Crosstown Arts. General admission, $10; students, $5. Doors, 7 p.m.

Categories
Music Music Blog

Frog Squad Gives Satie a Jumpstart

Frog Squad plays Satie at The Green Room (Credit: Alex Greene)

Frog Squad has been turning heads for a few years now, especially among free jazz aficionados. But unlike, say, Dopolarians or other strictly “free” combos based solely on improvisation, Frog Squad has a secret weapon: composition. Memphis Flyer readers know of Frog Squad founder David Collins’ compositions from our feature from this March, focused on his album Memphis, painstakingly scored for quintet. But fewer know that his gift for jazz ensemble scoring overlaps with his Frog Squad work.

Yet that was abundantly clear last night, when Frog Squad took to the stage in The Green Room at Crosstown Arts. And, ironically, Collins’ talent for arranging was brought to light not through his own compositions, but through his interpretations of the work of Erik Satie.

It was intriguing from the start: the work of one of classical music’s most minimalist composers re-imagined by an eight-piece free jazz ensemble. But this wasn’t just any ensemble. The group featured Hope Clayburn on alto saxophone and flute, Franko Coleman on tenor sax and flute, Aaron Phillips on baritone sax and bass flute, Cedric Taylor on keyboards, Khari Wynn on bass, Jon Harrison on drums, and Collins on guitar, with occasional group member Chad Fowler joining on saxello, C Melody sax, alto sax, and flute. This is a heavy band under any circumstances, but especially so when guided by Collins’ arrangements and one of the greatest composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The final sound achieved by the group revealed just how versatile and open to improvisation Satie’s music is. Collins’ approach was to transpose pieces most often known as piano works to full band voicings, using the four horn players sometimes as an integrated unit, sometimes as individual soloists. And solo they did, with great passion and abandon. Fowler and Clayburn especially made use of the full range of their reed instruments’ possibilities for honks, shrieks, and wails, then reined themselves in on a dime to return to the horn section’s arrangements. Meanwhile, the guitar, bass, keyboard, and drums held down funk/jazz grooves the likes of which have never been applied to Satie, one can be sure.

In all, eight pieces were featured: “Gnossiennes” 1-4, “Je Te Veux,” and “Gymnopédies” 1-3. Surely the highlight was Satie’s ethereal “First Gymnopédie,” with the delicate, waltzing chords played by the horn section, as Collins outlined the melody with echoing guitar.

The end result was beyond category. One might compare it to the finer instrumental work of Frank Zappa, or perhaps the wilder, latter day efforts by Gil Evans, but ultimately it was its own sound. There were even lighthearted moments, as when the horn section’s oom-pah-pah dynamics were amplified by all the players doing knee bends in time to their parts. And an intriguing bit of futurism was added by effects pedals that Clayburn and Phillips played through, not to mention some fine synth renderings by Taylor.

The nearly-full Green Room audience was fully engaged, cheering loudly for each fresh take on Satie, then demanding an encore and rounding off the night with uproarious applause.

As the band packed their instruments, I asked Collins how long it had taken him to craft this approach to Satie. “For about a month and a half, that was all I thought about,” he said, as he described driving, walking, or eating with Satie’s music looping through his head. Then there was one full band rehearsal, a smattering of play-throughs with the rhythm section, and a recent ‘incognito’ gig at B-Side Memphis, also known as “a rehearsal,” to quote saxophonist Chad Fowler.

“We recorded the B-Side show, and for tonight we have both the audio and video,” said Collins. “Soon I’ll be taking the best tracks from both shows and making an album out of it.”

Categories
Film/TV Music Music Blog

Sisters with Transistors at Crosstown Arts: Women Making Waves

Maryanne Amacher in "Sisters with Transistors" (Photo: Peggy Wells, courtesy Crosstown Arts)

It’s telling that Sisters with Transistors, a new film about the female pioneers of electronic music, is noteworthy at all. The very existence of such a film reveals what a boys’ club recording engineering and audio geekery can be. It’s common knowledge among musicians, and a running joke among those few, proud women producers and engineers around town, like Dawn Hopkins or Alyssa Moore. But casual listeners may not think about those behind-the-scenes magic-makers at all, much less their gender.

Watching this film, this week’s feature at Crosstown Arthouse Film Series, will change all that. As it turns out, many of the key innovators over the past century of electronic and avant garde music have been women. Even electronic music nerds (my people!) have largely ignored this. The classic CD set, OHM: The Early Gurus of Electronic Music (1948-1980), spans decades with 42 tracks over three discs, yet only four of those tracks feature women composers or performers.

Lisa Rovner’s documentary, released this past April in select cinemas, and now only rarely available for streaming via Metrograph.com, helps to correct such bias. Focusing on a far from exhaustive list of 10 or so innovators, Sisters with Transistors, narrated by Laurie Anderson, reveals just how critical women have been to the field.

For starters, there’s Clara Rockmore, one of the first virtuosos of the Theremin, the hundred-year-old tone generator that defined an era of science fiction soundtracks and more. There are two geniuses of the B.B.C., Delia Derbyshire (probably best known for co-creating the Doctor Who theme) and Daphne Oram. There are Bebe Barron, Pauline Oliveros (who may just have invented sampling from an LP in 1965), Maryanne Amacher, Eliane Radigue, Suzanne Ciani (master of the Buchla synthesizer who created many iconic sound effects for commercials) and Laurie Spiegel.

Indie Memphis fans who saw A Life in Waves may know Suzanne Ciani’s work, and Doctor Who fans may know Delia Derbyshire’s name, but beyond that, these are pioneers whose work deserves recognition on par with that afforded the men who’ve been recognized for decades. As one of Rovner’s subjects notes, “I just want to be introduced as a composer, and to start to point out how hard it was for women to be taken seriously as creators of music.”

Sisters with Transistors screens on Thursday, September 2, at Crosstown Theater, 7:30-9:30 p.m. $5.

Categories
Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Scorsese’s Forgotten Gem After Hours

Griffin Dunne and Rosanna Arquette in After Hours.

In 1983, after directing a string of classics including Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and The King of Comedy — and kicking a bad cocaine habit — Martin Scorsese set out to adapt Nikos Kazantzakis’ novel The Last Temptation of Christ into a feature film. It didn’t go well. Just as everything was coming together, Paramount Pictures pulled the plug, citing pressure from Christian groups in the United States who promised to picket theaters if the story of Jesus’ inner struggles with divinity was ever released. The despondent director decided to do a quickie, low-budget comedy to lighten his mood and keep his name out there while his biblical epic was in turnaround. Maybe that’s why After Hours is such a strange bird — its a great director trying to be funny while he’s really pissed off.

Scorsese was a notorious New York party animal in the 1970s, so he understood the world of After Hours intimately. Griffin Dunne stars as Paul, a hopelessly square data entry worker who meets a cute girl named Marcy, played by Rosanna Arquette in one of her best roles ever, in a late-night diner. From the beginning, Paul is smitten, but Marcy — well, let’s just say she’s going through some stuff.

Marcy invites him to her SoHo apartment under the pretense of Paul buying a bagel-shaped paperweight from her sculptor roomie Kiki. But once he wanders into the wilds of 1980s New York, the going gets weird. Finally, after meeting the baffling Kiki, he makes it as far as Marcy’s bedroom, which is practically littered with red flags.

From there, things go from weird to extremely weird to life-threateningly weird. The comedy stems from Paul being a big fish out of water. Everyone he meets in late-night SoHo (including Cheech and Chong) is a freak by Reagan ’80s standards, but this is their world, and here, Paul is the freak. He never knows what set of rules he’s playing by — or if there are any rules at all.

Scorsese finally got to make The Last Temptation of Christ in 1988, after earning Paul Newman an Oscar with The Color of Money, and After Hours was mostly a forgotten curiosity. But the strange, circular fever dream of a film slowly developed its own cult through repeated reruns on late night television. It’s screening tonight, Thursday, August 26, at 7:30 p.m. as part of the Crosstown Arthouse series. Admission is $5 at the door.

Categories
Music Music Blog

Blueshift Ensemble Features Our Favorite ICEBERG

Blueshift Ensemble (Photo courtesy Blueshift Ensemble)

Readers may wonder why an iceberg is present in the music blog, and rightly so. Is this some kind of stealth climate change activism? While its true that climate change has become an unavoidable iceberg in the room of our lives, ICEBERG is quite a different matter: It will be very much present in the East Atrium of Crosstown Concourse today and tomorrow, but it won’t be either melting or dangerous.

Rather, the ICEBERG new music collective hails from New York, a group of 10 young composers who promote the idea that “classical” compositions should draw from a broad array of influences in their work — including popular music, avant-garde techniques, and everything in between. The ICEBERG composers hail from different schools and cultivate radically different sounds, but with their longstanding collaboration with Memphis’ Blueshift Ensemble, they often compose for the same group and present their works during a joint concert. The result is a glimpse into the ever-widening possibilities of art music in the 21st century.

Not to be confused with the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), also based in New York, ICEBERG was founded by composer Alex Burtzos in 2016. Almost from the beginning, they’ve cultivated a relationship with Blueshift Ensemble, often being featured in the Continuum Festival that typically takes place this time of year. While there’s no festival per se, Blueshift, which happens to include flautist Jenny Davis, Crosstown Arts’ music department manager, will be performing a selection of compositions from the ICEBERG group.

This weekend, they’ll be joined by another ensemble, the Coalescent Quartet, an all-saxophone group playing everything from traditional to contemporary works. Regular members Nathan Bogert, Michael Shults, Nick Zoulek, and Drew Whiting will be joined by Heidi Radtke, instructor of saxophone at Butler University. All told, Coalescent’s members have taught at Ball State University, Silver Lake College, the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire, UW Oshkosh, UW Whitewater, the University of Memphis, and Oakland University, and collectively the quartet has presented master classes across the country.

It’s an all too rare chance to delve deeply into the world of contemporary art music, all live and all free. Why not welcome this ICEBERG into the safe harbor of Memphis, and help keep this cutting-edge collaboration a going concern?

Blueshift Ensemble & Coalescent Quartet perform ICEBERG New Music in the East Atrium of the Crosstown Concourse, Friday, August 20 and Saturday, August 21, at 7:30 p.m. on both nights. Free.

Categories
Film Features Film/TV Uncategorized

Crosstown Theater Film Series Resumes with Elizabeth King and Hellbound Train

Satan, the conductor of the Hellbound Train, in James and Eloyce Gist's 1930 film.

Crosstown Theater resumed programming last week with Reigning Sound. Now, Crosstown Arts is resuming its film series with a unique offering. Beginning in October, 2019, programmers Justin Thompson and Courtney Fly have been asking Memphis musicians to compose and perform scores for silent films. The results have been pretty spectacular.

Tonight, the film in question is Hellbound Train. It was created in 1930 by a husband-and-wife team of traveling Black evangelists named James and Eloyce Gist, who taught themselves to use a 16 mm, handheld movie camera. That’s the kind of DIY spirit I love to celebrate. As you can see from the image above, their costuming was crude, to say the least. The story, which was accompanied by real-time commentary from the Gists—call it a “live-preach”—was of thoughtless sinners who boarded a train driven by Satan himself, and faced the infernal consequences of their actions. As you can see, the Gists had a particular bee in their bonnets about dancing.

Wait ’til they hear about twerking.

Hellbound Train was thought lost, as so many films have been from the silent era, but it was recently rediscovered and restored by Kino Lorber and released by Criteron as a part of their efforts to preserve early examples Black cinema.

Performing the live score will be Memphis gospel singer Elizabeth King, accompanied by guitarist Will Sexton and producer Matt Ross-Spang, with percussion by Will McClary. Follow this link for a little taste of what you can expect at Crosstown Theater tonight at 7:30 PM sharp.

Categories
Music Music Blog

Crosstown Theater and Green Room are Up and Running

Arlo McKinley plays the Green Room tonight (Photo courtesy Mempho Presents)

Before the pandemic, one of the freshest spots for new, unpredictable music was Crosstown Concourse. Thanks to Crosstown Arts, both the Crosstown Theater and the Green Room set a new standard for world-class, often edgy music in the Bluff City, hosting everything from down home soul by Booker T. Jones to wildly eclectic jazz by Marc Ribot to the avant-garde classical outings of the Continuum Festival.

As of tonight, that spirit is back in force, and Memphis is the better for it. Yet when I hear from Crosstown Arts Music Department Manager Jenny Davis that both Crosstown Theater and the Green Room will be presenting live music again, the first question that springs to mind is, “That’s great! Will the Art Bar be reopening?”

She laughs and says, “I think I hear that question more than any other.” But, she notes, while drinks will be available at tonight’s show in the Green Room, she can’t commit to a set date for the watering hole. “But,” she reassures me, “it will be reopening sooner rather than later.”

The artist set to bring Crosstown Arts’ venues back to life for the first time since the pandemic, singer/songwriter Arlo McKinley, who plays the Green Room tonight at 7:30 p.m., will be presented by Mempho, a familiar name in the Memphis music scene, thanks to the Mempho Music Festival. Later in the fall, Mempho will be presenting another concert, The Wood Brothers, at Crosstown Arts in the Crosstown Theater.

There will be plenty more between those two, however. “Of course we have Reigning Sound on Saturday, July 24th,” she laughs, partly because (full disclosure) I’m playing in that one, but also because she’s just getting used to how much music is already slated for the two venues. The staff has done a sudden hard pivot into the here-and-now. “Up until just a few weeks ago, we were anticipating late 2021, definitely 2022, for shows happening again here. So we were working on 2022 shows and that was all really looking exciting. Then we found out that we can have shows now. And both the Green Room and the Theater will be fully open, at full capacity.”

Elizabeth King (Photo courtesy Bible & Tire Recording Co.)

Many films dot the upcoming dates, but the one screening on July 29th is actually a hybrid film and live music event. “This is part of our film series,” she says. “We’ll have a weekly film every Thursday for $5, and this will be our first one: Elizabeth King singing on stage at Crosstown Theater to a silent film from 1930, Hell-Bound Train. It’s a film that presents all these terrible situations, with Elizabeth King singing gospel songs in contrast. It’s going to be a really cool combination. She’ll be singing with Will Sexton and Matt Ross-Spang and Will McCarley.” Other live-score events may be part of Crosstown Arts’ future, but nothing is settled yet.

“Then we have two shows in the Green Room that same week,” Davis adds. “The film is Thursday, and then on Friday, July 30th, in the Green Room, it’s Rachel Maxann, a Memphis-based musician, with Oakwalker opening. I’m really looking forward to that show. Then Those Pretty Wrongs, with Jody Stephens and Luther Russell, will be at the Green Room on July 31st.”

Davis stresses that what’s being announced on the Crosstown Arts event calendar is far from all the music being planned. “There’s definitely more to come,” she underscores. “We’re still working on details. We should be back to having shows every single week, starting this weekend. Although there will be no Continuum Festival per se, Blueshift Ensemble is still going to perform pieces by the
ICEBERG composers from New York, in two concerts with five pieces each, Friday, August 20th and Saturday, August 21st.” Beyond that iceberg’s tip, she hints, there lurk many other musical delights,
including a special screening of the recent chronicle of female electronic music pioneers, Sisters with Transistors, on September 2nd. As always, keep checking the Crosstown Arts website for the updated schedule.

Categories
Music Music Blog Music Features

Crosstown Resumes Live Music in the Atrium

Ever since its grand opening, one defining quality of the Crosstown Concourse has been its emphasis on live music. From ad hoc performances on the public grand piano in the West Atrium to full-blown music festivals spilling into all manner of open areas, there were always sounds bouncing around the wide open spaces of the old Sears Tower. There were, that is, until last year’s lockdown.

New light wells in the Concourse have increased its natural light. (Courtesy Crosstown Concourse)

Now, with vaccinations and other preventive measures becoming more common, the Crosstown Concourse is taking its first steps back to those pre-COVID days. For the past few weeks, musicians have occasionally been sponsored to play under the covered tables in the front plaza. And this week, they’ll be back in that huge reverb chamber known as the East Atrium.

Actually, the Concourse is taking a hybrid approach, with some performances still being scheduled outside in the plaza, and continuing online events as well, such as Crosstown Arts’ Virtual Resident Artist Talks. Here, then, are the first pop-up live and online events helping the Crosstown Concourse kick off April.

Alice Hasen, Andrew Geraci, & Jordan Occasionally
(Courtesy Crosstown Arts)

Alice Hasen
Thursday, April 1st, 5 p.m.-7 p.m. | Central Atrium
Born in Vermont and based in Memphis, Alice Hasen is a professional violinist, recording artist, and songwriter. She leads Alice Hasen & the Blaze and is part of the Blackwater Trio, an acoustic rock band. 

Andrew Geraci with Jeff Hulett and Chris Davenport
Friday, April 2nd, 5 p.m.-7 p.m. | Plaza
Memphis-based Andrew Geraci is a Mississippi Delta-bred electric and upright bass player who picks up a guitar every blue moon. He is currently working with Alice Hasen and the Blaze, Alicjapop, Crockett Hall, Great Lakes, Eleven Point (Oxford), James and the Ultrasounds, Los Psychosis, Pistol and the Queen, and San Salida. 

Jordan Occasionally and inoahcreation
Saturday, April 3, 11:30-1:30 p.m. | Central Atrium
Jordan Occasionally, or JD, is a neo soul and R&B artist, born and raised in the capital of soul music, Memphis, Tennessee. She was an Emerging Star with David Porter’s Consortium MMT in 2019 and has performed her original music on stages ranging from the Levitt Shell in Memphis and City Winery in Nashville, to Carnegie Hall in New York City.

Virtual Resident Artist Talks
Thursday, April 8th at 6 pm.
Presenting artists include Sepideh Dashti (6 p.m.), Joann Self Selvidge (6:30 pm), and Sarah Elizabeth Cornejo (7 p.m.). Click here to register.