Freedom Summer Sessions: Reginald Cyntje

CAPITALBOP'S FREEDOM SUMMER SESSIONS
Livestreams for jazz and justice | in solidarity with the Blacksmiths

Reginald Cyntje - trombome
Herman Burney - bass
Lenny Robinson - drums

———

Recording artist REGINALD CYNTJE (born in Roseau Dominica, raised on St. Thomas, USVI) is an award-winning professional musician, composer, producer, and educator. When you listen to Cyntje perform, you hear a passion for life and love in his sound. He is active on the Washington DC music scene. Currently, he leads his own groups and works as a sideman in numerous bands. He is also the founder/owner of Jegna School of Music, a school that provides music lessons, workshops and mentoring concerts for intergenerational students; the founder and creative director of Cyntje Music, a one-stop music boutique that includes booking, curating and assisting artists; the author of Stepping Stones: 15 studies in improvisation; and a professor of music at Montgomery College. He has toured the US, Europe, South America, and the Caribbean and appeared on over 30 recordings including five of his own.

———

CapitalBop’s work has always centered our city’s intertwined legacies of jazz and justice. We’re launching Freedom Summer Sessions partly to honor that history, and partly to serve as a reminder that D.C.’s Black musicians are still here, doing the work, connecting our shared history with the present moment, in order to help usher in a better future.

The weekly Freedom Summer Sessions will feature a one-set performance every Friday at 7 p.m. from a distinguished D.C.-area artist, either solo or with a small, socially distanced group, broadcast to CapitalBop’s YouTube channel and its social media handles on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

CapitalBop is proud to be presenting this series in solidarity with The Blacksmiths, a coalition of artists, curators, cultural producers and organizers formed in the wake of nationwide protests against white supremacy and police brutality. The coalition’s mission centers on “sharing community responsive work inspired by Black revolutionary history and the current protest movement.” The Blacksmiths’ members are largely based in New York City; they have mounted a number of successful events there in service of joy, rejuvenation and solidarity since early June, including protest celebrations on Juneteenth and the Fourth of July. This series will be the first Blacksmiths-aligned event in another city.