CAPITALBOP’S FREEDOM SUMMER SESSIONS
Livestreams for jazz and justice | in solidarity with the Blacksmiths
Cecily – vocals & composition
Colin Chambers – keyboards
DC-based vocalist and songwriter Cecily is known for her agile soprano and honest lyrics. Her current album Songs of Love and Freedom recently won the Washington Area Music Award for Best Soul Album, and was named one of the Best Soul Albums of 2018 by the Bandcamp editorial team, who described the project as “stirringly timeless and modern.”
As a Washington, DC native, raised in a city synonymous with politics, it was an obvious choice to pursue a career in public service. But by the age of 21, Cecily walked out of her International Relations classroom feeling disillusioned. She told her mother that after 10 years of singing as a hobby, she wanted to dedicate her life to music. With a degree in Political Science and Black Studies, Cecily began her career as a vocalist and songwriter, with the mission to bring purpose and power to her music and people’s lives. It was music that mattered most then and now.
In her songs you’ll hear the influence of growing up surrounded by her parents vast record collection. Her father, a lover of Miles Davis, and her mother, a Smokey Robinson fan, filled their home with soulful sounds that captivated their daughter, and which she has channeled into her own work. Soulbounce says that Cecily creates “music that pulls from the past but looks toward the future.”
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.