Entry No. 40 — the Memphis file — filed under: listening-room
The Green Room at Crosstown Arts
The Green Room is a purpose-built listening space on the second floor of Crosstown Concourse — the 1927 Sears mail-order distribution tower that sat empty for two decades before reopening in 2017 as the largest LEED Platinum historic reuse project in the world. Crosstown Arts describes the room plainly: acoustically treated, reconfigurable, run with high-end audio and video gear, and deliberately built without the distractions of a bar or restaurant around it. What that buys you is a program where a Modern Jazz Masters date with Jon Cowherd ($25-35), a chamber flute-and-harp evening called Wind & Wire ($18-25), and a $7 open jazz jam session all get the same quiet. Doors generally open thirty minutes before the music, and a free 6pm series called The Mystic turns up on the first of the month.
→ Three more underground music & performance in Memphis — never the same twice
The story
Sears opened its Crosstown distribution center on August 27, 1927 — ten stories, and by the building's own account "the size of a fifteen-acre farm" — to fill catalog orders for the mail-order empire, and at its peak Sears was the largest employer in the city. By 1993 the building had gone vacant, and it stayed empty for roughly two decades. It reopened in August 2017 as Crosstown Concourse, ninety years after the ribbon-cutting on the original, and now bills itself as the largest LEED Platinum certified historic adaptive reuse building in the world.
The Green Room is Crosstown Arts' listening space on the second floor, Suite 280, in what the organization calls the most historic section of the Concourse. Crosstown Arts describes it as "a flexible, acoustically treated space" running "state-of-the-art audio/visual equipment," built to give an intimate listening experience "without the typical distractions that accompany a bar or restaurant venue." The bar isn't banished so much as moved down the hall — Crosstown Arts also runs Art Bar and the second-floor galleries — and the room's stage and A/V reconfigure for big band, jazz, hip-hop, classical or one singer-songwriter with a guitar.
That flexibility shows up as a calendar with almost no through-line except quiet. Modern Jazz Masters puts the Ted Ludwig Trio behind a guest — Jon Cowherd on Sept 3, Troy Roberts on Oct 3, $25 in advance with $10 student tickets. Wind & Wire is Memphis Symphony harpist Francis Cobb Kenney and flutist Elise Blatchford playing chamber music for flute and harp, $18 to $25. Sanctuary is a sound bath with a live DJ. The monthly jazz jam costs $7 and is free if you bring an instrument. And The Mystic — an hour of music, story, silence and dialogue, hosted by a rotating panel that has included Rabbi Micah Greenstein, Dr. Scott Morris and Kirk Whalum — carries no ticket price at all.
What it's like
Doors are typically thirty minutes before the music: 7:00 for a 7:30 show, and the calendar means it. Come into the Concourse, go up to the second floor and find Suite 280. The building is open 8am to 9pm, so eat downstairs first — there is nothing to buy inside the room itself. What you get in exchange is genuine quiet: seated, treated, no bar, no bartender, no bottles hitting a bin mid-ballad, which means the audience shuts up too and the front rows go first. Dress is whatever Midtown is wearing. The $7 jazz jam is the one loose night — participants get in free, so a good share of the room arrives carrying cases and the sign-up sheet is effectively the running order.
The move: Book the $7 Jazz Jam Session — the next one is Sept 22, 7:30 to 10, doors at 7 — and eat somewhere in Crosstown Concourse beforehand so you can walk upstairs to Suite 280 with ten minutes to spare and get seats near the front. Seven dollars for two and a half hours of live jazz is the best per-hour deal in Midtown.
📍 Before you go Buy in advance on the Crosstown Arts calendar — advance prices include fees and most shows also sell at the door, but the room is small. Ticket range runs $7 (jam sessions) to $35 (touring jazz); The Mystic series is free. Doors are typically 30 minutes before showtime. It's Suite 280, so enter the Concourse and go up — there's garage and surface parking on site, and food and drink downstairs since the listening room itself isn't a bar.
- 📍 Memphis
- 💸 $
- ⚡ Big night
- 🌗 Indoors
Where: 1350 Concourse Ave, Suite 280, Memphis, TN 38104
Hours: Added 2026-08-26 — confirm current hours before you go.
Pair it with
- Memphis Listening Lab — Suite 269 is eleven doors down the same second-floor hallway — free, John King's donated 35,000 45s, and a reference system in the SoundRoom, so you can spend an afternoon listening to records and an evening listening to people.
- Shangri-La Records — A mile and a half south at 1916 Madison and closed at 6 p.m., which slots it perfectly against a 7 p.m. door — buy the record first, hear the live version after.
- Hi-Tone (the downstairs Small Room) — Four blocks away on N Cleveland and the exact opposite proposition: 21+, unlovely, free Tuesday comedy open mic, no acoustic treatment whatsoever.
More weird in Memphis
Good to know
How do I buy tickets, and what will it cost?
Buy in advance on the Crosstown Arts calendar; advance prices are listed plus fees. Most shows also sell at the door for $5 to $10 more — Jon Cowherd is $25 advance and $35 at the door, Wind & Wire $18 and $25, Caroline Davis and John Németh $20-$25 and $30. Modern Jazz Masters dates carry $10 student tickets. The room is small, so advance is the safer play.
What's the cheapest way in?
The monthly Jazz Jam Session is $7 plus fees and free for anyone who plays — Sept 22 runs 7:30 to 10, doors at 7, hosted by the UofM Jazz Singers Alumni Ensemble. The Mystic runs 6 to 7 p.m. on the first Tuesday of the month (Sept 1, Oct 6) and is listed on the calendar with no ticket price.
Where exactly is it, and where do I park?
1350 Concourse Ave, Suite 280 — second floor of Crosstown Concourse in Midtown. There is parking on site and the building is open 8am to 9pm daily; the Concourse main line is 901-203-8300. Enter the building and go up rather than hunting for a separate street door.
Is there a bar? Can I drink during the show?
Not in the Green Room — that is the whole design premise. Crosstown Arts' own Art Bar (the one with rotating art installations under an enclosed plexiglass bar top) and the Concourse's restaurants are elsewhere in the building, so do your drinking and eating before doors.
What kind of music actually turns up here?
Crosstown Arts configures the room for big band, jazz, hip-hop, classical and singer-songwriter, and the fall calendar bears that out: modern jazz, a flute-and-harp chamber program, a blues set from Singa B & The Blues Boyz, John Németh, and a sound-bath-plus-DJ night called Sanctuary. Assume you will not know the artist and go anyway.
Plan a visit & invite your people →
Further reading: Official site
📷 We made a card for this one on Instagram →
last checked: 2026-08-26