Tucson, AZ---March at the Fox is the month for trying new things, enjoying old favorites, welcoming the season with two special events, and more. Penn and Teller, celebrating a 45 year “magical” career, kick off the month. Throughout March, Jazz lovers are in for a triple treat with John Pizzarelli and Catherine Russell, the legendary Preservation Hall Jazz Band, and Wynton Marsalis. Los Lobos and Gaby Moreno return with their own unique sound, Tucson’s own Billy Shaw opens for the classic Coal Miner’s Daughter, Voyager brings us the music of Journey, The Fabulous Thunderbirds and Ruthie Foster sing the blues, Meow Meow delivers her own unique sound, National Geographic photographer Alizé Carrère shares her discoveries, and the great Rosanne Cash will be joined by John Levanthal for a very memorable evening.
Two Chasing Rainbows pre-show dinner events are offered this month as well. The first will precede the Penn and Teller show on February 1, at Playground, the second before Wynton Marsalis at High Wire on March 31. These annual fundraising events include fabulous multi course dinners with paired beverages, live and silent auctions and premium tickets to each show. For details and pricing contact Jonathan Crider at jonathon@foxtucson.com
March 1, 7:30pm - Penn & Teller
From humble beginnings busking on the streets of Philadelphia to acclaimed sold–out runs on Broadway to the longest running and one of the most-beloved resident headline acts in Las Vegas history, Penn and Teller, magic’s legendary duo continues defy labels—and at times physics and good taste — by redefining the genre of magic and inventing their own very distinct niche in comedy. The current hit series Penn & Teller: Fool Us! for The CW Network, on which up-and-comers and magic veterans try to fool them for a chance to star in the pair’s hit Las Vegas stage show, was nominated for a Critic’s Choice Award and will return for a ninth season in late 2021. Hundreds of outrageous appearances on everything from Fallon to Friends, The Simpsons to Colbert, Modern Family to Big Bang Theory, plus their own specials for NBC, ABC, PBS and Comedy Central have garnered them an Emmy and a Writer’s Guild Award. The duo has its own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2020, Penn & Teller celebrated 45 years of professional partnership.
March 4, 7:30pm - John Pizzarelli & Catherine Russell present: Billie & Blue Eyes
Billie and Blue Eyes pays homage to two great artists – Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra – performed by two outstanding modern award-winning jazz musicians – Catherine Russell and John Pizzarelli. Performing their favorites from the extensive music catalogue of two legends, experience the bright vibrant voice of Catherine combined with the relaxed smooth guitar and vocals of John. This will be a blue-sky afternoon of jazz served on a silver plate for your pleasure.
March 8, 7:30pm – Preservation Hall Jazz Band: Pass it On, 60th Anniversary Musical Celebration
At a moment when musical streams are crossing with unprecedented frequency, it’s crucial to remember that throughout its history, New Orleans has been the point at which sounds and cultures from around the world converge, mingle, and resurface, transformed by the Crescent City’s inimitable spirit and joie de vivre. Nowhere is that idea more vividly embodied than in the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, which has held the torch of New Orleans music aloft for more than 50 years, all the while carrying it enthusiastically forward as a reminder that the history they were founded to preserve, is a vibrantly living history.
PHJB marches that tradition forward once again on “So It Is”, the septet’s second release featuring all-new original music. The album redefines what New Orleans music means in 2017 by tapping into a sonic continuum that stretches back to the city’s Afro-Cuban roots, through its common ancestry with the Afrobeat of Fela Kuti and the Fire Music of Pharoah Sanders and John Coltrane, and forward to cutting-edge artists with whom the PHJB have shared festival stages from Coachella to Newport, including legends like Stevie Wonder, Elvis Costello and the Grateful Dead and modern giants like My Morning Jacket, Arcade Fire and the Black Keys.
March 10, 7:30pm-Los Lobos with Special Guest Gaby Moreno
The journey of Los Lobos began in 1973, when David Hidalgo (vocals, guitar, and pretty much anything with strings), Louie Perez (drums, vocals, guitar), Cesar Rosas (vocals, guitar), and Conrad Lozano (bass, vocals, guitarrón) earned their stripes playing revved-up versions of Mexican folk music in restaurants and at parties. The band evolved in the 1980s as it tapped into L.A.’s burgeoning punk and college rock scenes. They were soon sharing bills with bands like the Circle Jerks, Public Image Ltd. and the Blasters, whose saxophonist, Steve Berlin, would eventually leave the group to join Los Lobos in 1984.
March 11, 7:00 pm -Music & Movies · Coal Miner’s Daughter with Musical Artist: Billy Shaw Jr Band Doors at 6:00pm, Music at 7:00pm, Movie at 8:00pm
Tucson Native Billy Shaw Jr is Arizona’s go-to award-winning Country Music entertainer for classics, contemporary, southern rock & originals. His signature black-framed glasses scream mild-mannered Clark Kent, but when he puts bow to fiddle, he transforms into a Country Music Superman. By day Billy is a patient yet outgoing geek. At night, the virtuoso transforms an unassuming stage with his unique Soulful Southwestern Rock Country sound influenced by Charlie Daniels, Kenny Rogers, and Bob Wills. His first album, “Billy Shaw” recorded in Nashville, debuts this month.
Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980)
Raised in rural Kentucky poverty and married at the age of 13, Loretta Lynn (Sissy Spacek) begins writing and singing her own country songs in her early 20s. With the tireless help of her husband Oliver “Mooney” Lynn (Tommy Lee Jones), Loretta rises from local honky-tonks and small-time record deals to national tours and hit singles, befriending her idol Patsy Cline (Beverly D’Angelo) and becoming a country music icon despite the toll stardom takes on her family and her marriage.
March 14, 7:30pm - The Fabulous Thunderbirds with Special Guest Ruthie Foster
Platinum Recording Artists, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, have been the quintessential American band for over 30 years. The group’s distinctive and powerful sound, influenced by a diversity of musical styles, manifested itself into a unique musical hybrid via such Billboard Top 40 barnburner Hits as “Tuff Enuff” and “Wrap It Up”. Co-founder Kim Wilson, vocalist and harmonica player, still spearheads the group as it evolves into its newest incarnation. And this year his solo album “Take Me Back” was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album.
Four-time Grammy Nominee and nine-time Blues Music Award, Texas-based vocal powerhouse Ruthie Foster was also honored with a Living Blues Critics’ Award for Female Blues Artist of the year. Described by Rolling Stone as “pure magic to watch and hear,” she is unquestionably one of the finest voices in roots music today, building her career and reputation over the last 25 years as one of the most formidable blues, soul and gospel vocalists and songwriters in the world.
March 18, 7:30pm- Voyager - A Tribute to the Music of Journey
Voyager is a spectacular tribute to the music of Rock & Roll Hall of Fame artist, Journey. This high energy production will take you on a musical tour of classic songs like “Faithfully”, “Open Arms”, “Who’s Crying Now”, “Wheel In The Sky”, “Anyway You Want It”, “Don’t Stop Believin’” and so many more. Featuring extraordinary musicians and vocalists who have toured nationally and internationally, Voyager provides today’s most entertaining and accurate Journey experience.
March 22,7:00 pm- Cinema Tucsón · La Usurpadora the Musical (Santiago Limón, USA/Mexico, 2023. In Spanish and English with English subtitles)
La Usurpadora, The Musical is a musical comedy set in Mexico and the United States told with hits from the Latin music of the nineties. The film stars Isabella Castillo, (El Señor de los Cielos, Malverde: El Santo Patrón) who plays Valeria and Victoria, twin sisters who couldn’t be more different, and Alan Estrada (¿Conoces a Tomás?, Día de Muertos), who plays the male lead and romantic interest, Carlos Daniel. It’s a tale of two identical twins separated at birth and unknown to each other, one poor, but truly decent, the other rich, conniving, and generally awful. A chance meeting brings them together in Las Vegas and soon their lives are hopelessly intertwined.
March 24, 7:30 pm- Rosanne Cash & John Leventhal
One of the country’s pre-eminent singer-songwriters, Rosanne Cash has released 15 albums of extraordinary songs that have earned four Grammy Awards and 12 nominations, as well as 21 top-40 hits, including 11 chart topping singles. She Remembers Everything—her latest release—is a poetic, lush, and soulful collection of songs that reckon with a flawed and intricate world. It follows her triple Grammy-winning 2014 album “The River & the Thread” and marks a return to more personal songwriting after a trio of albums that explored her southern roots and family heritage. Cash is also an author whose four books include the best-selling memoir Composed, which the Chicago Tribune called “one of the best accounts of an American life you’ll likely ever read.” Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Oxford American, The Nation, and many more print and online publications. A new book, Bird on a Blade, was recently published by UT Press, combining images by acclaimed artist Dan Rizzie with strands of lyrics from a variety of Cash’s songs.
Rosanne was just honored with the 2020/2021 Edward MacDowell Medal, awarded since 1960 to an artist who has made an outstanding contribution to American Culture. She is currently writing the lyrics for a musical, Norma Rae, with composer John Leventhal and book-writer John Weidman. A timely new single, “Crawl into the Promised Land” and “The Killing Fields,” was released this past year.
John Leventhal is a musician, producer, songwriter, and recording engineer who has produced albums for William Bell, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Michelle Branch, Rosanne Cash, Marc Cohn, Shawn Colvin, Sarah Jarosz, Rodney Crowell, Jim Lauderdale, Joan Osborne, Loudon Wainwright III and The Wreckers.
March 26, 3pm - National Geographic Live
Explore the remarkable ways people around the world are adapting to our changing planet with environmental anthropologist and filmmaker Alizé Carrère. Dive into the South Pacific waters of Vanuatu, where islanders are using innovative techniques to combat outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish that threaten the surrounding reefs. In Bangladesh, discover how farmers in low-lying areas are reviving an old agricultural technique—floating gardens—that has inspired other floating infrastructure, including schools, libraries, hospitals, and playgrounds. And travel to the mountainous desert of Ladakh in northern India to glimpse giant ice pyramids, or “ice stupas,” invented by a Ladakhi teacher and engineer to help the community preserve its scarce freshwater resources. Through her work documenting these stories, Carrère offers a hopeful look at the resilience, perseverance, and innovation of humankind under even the most difficult of conditions.
March 29, 7:30pm -Meow Meow
Post-post-modern diva Meow Meow has hypnotized, inspired, and terrified audiences globally with unique creations and sell-out seasons from New York’s Lincoln Center and Berlin’s Bar jeder Vernunft to London’s West End and the Sydney Opera House. Her solo works have been curated by David Bowie, Pina Bausch, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and numerous international arts festivals and garnered numerous awards including the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival Award, as well as the Green Room and Australian Helpmann awards. Besides being a prolific creator of original music, theater, and dance-theater, Meow Meow specializes in the Weimar repertoire and French chanson.Her latest album, Hotel Amour, was recorded with Thomas M. Lauderdale of Pink Martini and features duets with Rufus Wainwright and the late Michel Legrand, as well as original songs written by Lauderdale and Meow Meow, performed with members of Pink Martini and the Oregon Symphony. Adult themes and content, for ages 17 and older.
March 31, 7:30pm, Wynton Marsalis
Wynton Marsalis has been described as the most outstanding jazz musician and trumpeter of his generation, as one of the world’s top classical trumpeters, as a big band leader in the tradition of Duke Ellington, a brilliant composer, a devoted advocate for the Arts and a tireless and inspiring educator. He carries these distinctions well. His life is a portrait of discipline, dedication, sacrifice, and creative accomplishment. The sound of Wynton Marsalis’ band is inspired by the basic principles of democracy. According to Marsalis, what you hear in a great jazz band is the sound of democracy. “The jazz band works best when participation is shaped by intelligent communication.” His show in the intimate setting of the Fox will be his only appearance in Arizona.