Acoustic Rooster and His Barnyard Band is a new one-hour, jazz-infused special premiering Thursday May 1st on PBS Kids. Creator Kwame Alexander adapts from his 2011 book. Julius Harper serves as executive producer. It’s the story of a young rooster who wants to join jazz animal greats in making fantastic music. This special, and 20 accompanying shorts available on PBS Kids platforms, will show kids the power of collaboration and creating a beautiful tune. (This Animation Scoop Q&A was edited for length and clarity.)
Jackson Murphy: Kwame, what fascinated you about the experience of taking your 2011 picture book and turning it into this one-hour special for PBS Kids?
Kwame Alexander: The story began in a place called Tuscany. I was on a writers’ retreat in 2010. And every morning I’d walk by this farm that had a bunch of roosters and pigs and animals running around having a blast, like it was a party. I really looked forward to my morning walks to see these animals. I began to say, “What if they were partying? There would have to be music.” It’s gonna be live music… and it’s gonna be jazz. I created this world. And now 14 years later, to see it come full circle. It started on a farm, it went to the page, and now Jackson, it’s literally on the stage. We’re bringing it back alive and making it electric for kids. It’s pretty thrilling.
JM: Julius, you’ve worked on Disney, DreamWorks and Netflix animation content. How does it feel to add PBS Kids to your impressive list with this special?
Julius Harper: It’s really a privilege, Jackson. Working at GBH with PBS has been awesome. Here, we’re really focusing on how we’re putting goodness out into the world. Of course we’ve got to be fun and entertaining, but the one thing that sets GBH and PBS content apart is it’s about putting goodness out into the world. There’s meaning behind it. The goal of “Acoustic Rooster” is to introduce a new generation of kids to the wide world of jazz music. We have an opportunity here to spark a love for a classic American music genre that has deep historical roots in American history and Black history. It’s really such a privilege to work with such a talented group of people who really know, understand and value that.
JM: Nice. Kwame, Acoustic Rooster loves music so much. His enthusiasm for jazz is infectious. He loves what he’s doing.
KA: It mirrors my own life. I’ve fallen in love with jazz so many times. The first time was with my father. Not to mention the beautiful woman I played the music for… I invited her over for dinner and played her music and she fell in love, and we got married.
JM: And Julius, you show the dynamic between Acoustic Rooster and the bandmates he meets. Here’s the young guy coming in, and here are the veterans who want to share their wisdom and knowledge… teach Acoustic Rooster a little more about what it means to be a jazz performer.
JH: It’s great that you picked up on that because that’s one of the main themes of both the “Acoustic Rooster” special and a lot of the shorts. Our idea was to bring that down to something that would be relatable to a preschooler. We look at it through the lens of collaboration. How can we work together to create something greater? So it’s really about life skills at that level, when you’re talking about three and four year olds. How do I play along with friends? How can we get along to create something that we both like? How do we take turns? That’s call and response. How do I learn to follow the beat but also improvise and add my own special sauce to things? They’re foundational social concepts about how to get along with others.
JM: You’re right. Kwame, over the hour there’s this arc Acoustic Rooster has about collaboration and working with others. It takes time. It takes steps to learn about working with others.
KA: I’m a big fan of edu-tainment. Let’s inform. Let’s educate. And let’s also make sure we’re entertaining. We create these opportunities for kids to watch a beautifully animated, high quality music, feel good show and laugh… and be awed, and have no idea that they’re learning.
JM: And you’re so right that this is a visually fun special. It’s vivacious.
JH: It was a real privilege to work with the team at Global Mechanic to find the look of the “Acoustic Rooster” show. We wanted something that pops and feels alive. That’s what jazz music is. Jazz is not only a musical movement, it’s a visual medium as well. There’s a certain bright, colorful, poppy, energetic movement focused flow to the art. Finding ways to celebrate that jazzy look within the design of a preschool show allowed us to find something that actually looks like nothing else in the preschool space.
JM: You guys talked about the call and response aspect as one of the core themes of jazz, and riffing and making decisions on the fly. Kwame, was there a moment in making this that you felt that as far as, “I gotta make a decision on the fly to better how the special is going to turn out”?
KA: Wow. That’s a great question. I think the entire process has been a riff. You’re working with people you’ve never worked with before. At any given time, someone’s gonna ask a question or have a differing opinion. I’m a very vocal person. There were numerous points in the process where that happened. In the collaboration process, especially like in jazz… there were times where I had to let Julius know, “This is my solo.” And Julius stepped back. And there were times where Julius was like, “Kwame, this ain’t your solo. This is somebody’s else’s solo.” And when you have a relationship where everyone respects everyone, and the ultimate goal is to create a musical masterpiece, it’s all love and it all comes together.
JM: There are 20 additional shorts. Julius, what are we gonna see from them?
JH: They live under what we call “Acoustic Rooster Jazzy Jams”. We have this broadcast special, but we also wanted to make sure we were getting little “Acoustic Rooster” bites out into the world in places like the PBS Kids YouTube channel. The kids that might not be directly in the PBS Kids world might get exposure to this character and some of the music. The shorts feature an original jazz song… a couple of them are jazzy takes on songs kids might know, like “Happy Birthday” or “Old MacDonald Had a Farm”. We’re getting a taste of those themes of how to work together and how to express yourself. That is so key for children to learn.
JM: Kwame, how do you feel about music classes embracing this and probably watching this special and these shorts over and over again?
KA: I started off as a teacher, and I lasted six months, Jackson. That was the hardest work I’ve ever done. I envy teachers. It’s sacred work. One of our goals is to supplement what teachers are doing in the classroom — an option to show how music can teach kids about music — instrumentation, melody, harmony, song, lyric — but most importantly to become better human beings.
JM: And Julius, kids may be inspired to play music with pets and other animals. Maybe at farms and petting zoos. You could see a lot of videos of that.
JH: Absolutely. It’s funny you mentioned that, it brought to mind an event that occurred during one of our internal screenings. Afterwards there was the little girl about four years old, she ran to her toy box and she got a little toy horsey and a little toy chicken and maybe a little Gumby… and she made herself a jazz band. She was playing with those characters in that moment. She explained that she loved the characters so much that she wanted to make her own band too. That speaks to the influence this is going to have in children having an interest in jazz music and bands. That’s something super special.
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
