Preview: ‘Children of Bronzeville’ Song Cycle

  I  
Image

Joy performs the track “Dekoven” on Children of Bronzeville.

(Photo: Courtesy of Savage Content)

In honor of Black History Month and Samara Joy’s Grammy Awards success winning for Best New Artist and Jazz Vocal Album, the online platform Savage Content has provided a first look into its upcoming Children of Bronzeville project with one of Joy’s extraordinary performances as well as two other outstanding performances featuring Joshua Banbury and Vanisha Gould. Joy is accompanied on the track by jazz pianist Aaron Diehl.

Children of Bronzeville is a song cycle based on children’s poems by Gwendolyn Brooks, a Chicago native who was born in the Bronzeville neighborhood of the city’s South Side in 1915, and in 1950 won the Pulitzer Prize in poetry. The songs, written by jazz/classical composer Patrick Zimmerli, tell an allegorical tale blending elements of jazz, pop and classical music.

View the promotional videos by clicking on the following song titles:

• Joshua Banbury, “Dave”

• Vanisha Gould, “Rudolph Is Tired Of The City”

• Samara Joy, “Dekoven”

Children of Bronzeville is a celebration of the joy, imagination, beauty and freedom of childhood. DB



  • Coltrane_John_008_copy_2.jpg

    “This is one of the great gifts that Coltrane gave us — he gave us a key to the cosmos in this recording,” says John McLaughlin.

  • 2tx3p_BNJF2025LineupApr11080x1350--1_copy.jpg

    The Blue Note Jazz Festival New York kicks off May 27 with a James Moody 100th Birthday Celebration at Sony Hall.

  • Ethan_Iverson_by_David_Moressi_2024_copy.jpg

    “I’m certainly influenced by Geri Allen,” said Iverson, during a live Blindfold Test at the 31st Umbria Jazz Winter festival.

  • Isaiah_Collier_by_Michael_Jackson_2025.jpg

    “At the end of the day, once you’ve run out of differences, we’re left with similarities,” Collier says. “Cultural differences are mitigated through 12 notes.”

  • Andy_Bey_NYC_2014_by_Steven_Sussman_copy.jpg

    “It kind of slows down, but it’s still kind of productive in a way, because you have something that you can be inspired by,” Andy Bey said on a 2019 episode of NPR Jazz Night in America, when he was 80. “The music is always inspiring.”

    Vocalist Andy Bey Dies at 85

    Singer Andy Bey, who illuminated the jazz scene for five decades with a four-octave range that encompassed a bellowing…


On Sale Now
June 2025
Theo Croker
Look Inside
Subscribe
Print | Digital | iPad