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It uses footage of Chicago's black neighborhoods, performances by Sun Ra, John Gilmore, and Julian Priester and the music of Sun Ra and Paul Severson interspersed with scenes of musicians and intellectuals, both black and white, conversing at a jazz club.
Uses dramatic dialogue, direct address argumentation, realist documentary illustration, an innovative music soundtrack, and essayistic construction to argue for jazz music as an expression of the situation of Black Americans.
The Cry of Jazz is the only film composer and musician Ed Bland ever helmed. Deemed radical, alarmist, and amateurish by many upon its release, it fused street grit and ivory tower intellect into a thirty-four minute celluloid whirlwind, all the while scored by a then unknown Le Sun Ra & his Arkestra.
Around 1959, after spending part of the '50s within the ranks of orchestras led by Sun Ra and Lionel Hampton, Priester joined Max Roach's band, and it was while with the great drummer that he cut two fantastic albums for Riverside, both of them in 1960—Keep Swingin' and Spiritsville.
The Cry of Jazz (1959) cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more.
Running time. The Cry of Jazz is a 1959 documentary film by Edward O. Bland that connects jazz to African American history. It uses footage of Chicago's black neighborhoods, performances by Sun Ra, John Gilmore, and Julian Priester and the music of Sun Ra and Paul Severson interspersed with scenes of musicians and intellectuals, both black and ...
Edward Haydn Higgins (February 21, 1932 – August 31, 2009) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and orchestrator. His performance and composition in 1959's " Cry of Jazz " is preserved in the Library of Congress' National Film Registry.
