Kwame Alexander’s chickens are finally coming home to roost. PBS Kids in collaboration with production company GBH Kids is releasing a slate of short-form episodes and an hour-long special adapted from Kwame Alexander’s picture book Acoustic Rooster and His Barnyard Band. Alexander’s rocking roosters first hit shelves in 2011 published by Sleeping Bear Press, followed by a sequel, Acoustic Rooster’s Barnyard Boogie Starring Indigo Blume, in 2020.

Acoustic Rooster: Jazzy Jams, a 20-episodes series, made its premiere with a sneak-peak episode on February 24 on PBS Kids, with the second episode to follow on April 11; a weekly rollout of the rest of the series will start on May 9. Acoustic Rooster and His Barnyard Band, the special, will release on May 1. Both the series and the special follow the titular musically inclined rooster who joins the Barnyard Band of Jazz Greats and navigates the ups and downs of band life including teamwork, and creativity. The episodes and special will also be available to stream on the PBS app.

Alexander was first approached for the project in 2017, at a book party for Alexander’s YA novel Solo. When Kay Donmyer, an animator on the Curious George series among other projects, made an appearance bearing cupcakes, Alexander was intrigued. Donmyer expressed interest in adapting the Acoustic Rooster books, and Alexander said he was “immediately onboard.”

“I’ve always seen these characters as having of a life off the page and on the stage,” Alexander told PW.

The Acoustic Rooster picture book began with Alexander’s own journey into fatherhood, when his daughter at the time couldn’t rest. Upon discovering the only thing that would settle her was jazz music, he began brainstorming a picture book about jazz. In writing the book, Alexander noted that he feels it is his job “to create a text that the parents are also going to enjoy.” And so, Acoustic Rooster combines “rhymes that kids will really engage with” and character name Easter eggs for parents such as Duck Ellington, Mules Davis, Tina Turtle, and more, to celebrate the history of jazz music.

Alexander served as executive producer on the projects, alongside Donmyer, with Rachel Stolberg and Ranjit Gill acting as director. But this wasn’t Alexander’s first adaptation rodeo, as he’d served as producer for the Disney+ adaptation of his Newbery-winning novel The Crossover. Of the many things he said he learned during this new experience, a notable one was “to create an environment that’ s familial, where people feel like they want to make this successful. It’s not just work, but it’s something that we try to build community around. That worked so well on The Crossover, and I tried to do my part to contribute to that feeling here on the Rooster cartoon.”

Alexander had a hand in many parts of the project, from writing to marketing to sharing his input on animation. On his heavy involvement, Alexander said he isn’t ashamed to be a “control freak.” A lesson instilled in him by his father to advocate for himself as a Black man and as a creative, Alexander believes “this is how I’ve always been, even when I didn’t necessarily have the talent. The creativity has always been there. It took a while for the talent to get close to the ambition, but I’ve always been that person who knew what he wanted and was unafraid to not only say it, but to go after it.”

Jazzing It Up

Across the series and special, the adaptations feature 24 original tracks composed by Juno Award-winning jazz musician Mark McLean, as well as special guests, including Herbie Hancock and renowned jazz bassist Amy Shook. A self-proclaimed “jazz snob,” (Alexander first discovered the genre by stealing a crate of his father’s old jazz records and taking them to college with him), he was most particular about ensuring that the music of the show fully showcased the breadth and history of jazz.

“Jazz is this music that makes us feel uplifted,” Alexander said. “It’s this optimistic experience without being naive. Jazz exudes confidence and coolness. I find that for all the things that we can, that we want to teach and inspire in children, music and the arts can do that in a very immediate way.”

Even with Acoustic Rooster’s expansion into screen, Alexander has not left its original medium behind. Acoustic Rooster and Friends and Acoustic Rooster Sings the Alphabet are two board book additions to the book series, published by Sleeping Bear on April 1.

Introducing young readers, and now young watchers, to jazz is also about introducing them to American history, “the real history,” Alexander said. “There are so many different stories that we can teach about America, and about Black America in particular, through jazz music. We need every opportunity and entry point we can get to be able to share the real history of humanity, so that our children can be better than we are.”