It’s hard to believe that the new and improved Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts has been open for over a year now, but here we are, getting jazzed for another season of programming. On Tuesday, they announced the selections for their 2024-2025 concert series, which includes eight shows from September to May.
Like last year, all of the concerts will take place in AMFA’s 350-seat Performing Arts Theater, starting on Sept. 11 with Booker T. Jones, a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award recipient whose iconic organ and piano work with Booker T. & the M.G.’s — a group of Stax Records session musicians and a formidable instrumental act in their own right — left an indelible mark on the trajectory of soul music. Amongst dozens of other significant collaborations, Jones played on all six of Otis Redding’s studio albums.
Additionally, November and December promise two notable indie folk rock artists from the South: Kentucky native S.G. Goodman and Hiss Golden Messenger, a North Carolina-based project led by singer-songwriter MC Taylor whose latest album, 2023’s “Jump for Joy,” was described by Rolling Stone as “a whirlwind ride of rock and folk elements that is both playful and bouncy, with a lightness of spirit.” As for Goodman, I’ve seen her play twice now and can attest the awesome way her charming, subtly wisecracking persona crackles in contrast with her fiercely humane politics and rough-around-the-edges voice, raspy on the low end and piercingly pure when the high notes punch through.
-Daniel Grear
Elsewhere on the lineup is the kind of stuff jazz fans would be marking their 2025 calendars for, if jazz people were the kind of people to have 2025 calendars already. The effervescent Cyrille Aimée is coming in March, a French vocalist known as much for her nimble and technical improvisation as she is for singing with her entire body. She’s a must-see, and a vocalist many Arkansans would happily travel to Newport Jazz Fest or beyond to hear.
Not to mention a Peter Martin-centric trio featuring Brazilian jazz guitarist Romero Lubambo and clarinetist/bandleader Anat Cohen — both jazz giants in their own right — that’s going up in October. For Little Rockers who miss the much-lauded jazz concert series the Oxford American programmed at the bygone South on Main, an appearance from this trio is going to scratch a certain jazz combo itch — and is gonna sound red hot in that theater space.
-Stephanie Smittle
Season tickets are $397 for nonmembers and $347 for members and are available here. Individual tickets go on sale on July 11.
Here’s the complete list of performers:
- Booker T. Jones on September 11, 2024;
- Rio Meets New Orleans: Peter Martin, Romero Lubambo, and Anat Cohen on October 17, 2024;
- Hiss Golden Messenger on November 14, 2024;
- S.G. Goodman on December 12, 2024;
- René Marie on January 30, 2025;
- Cyrille Aimée on March 27, 2025;
- The Love Light Orchestra feat. John Németh on April 30, 2025;
- Bab L’Bluz on May 1, 2025.