The Cry of Jazz
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 white, conversing at a jazz club. It has been credited as being an early example of the Black pride movement and with predicting the urban riots of the 1960s and 1970s, and has been called the first hip-hop film. In 2010, this film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The Library of Congress had this to say of the film and its significance:
Cry of Jazz...is now recognized as an early and influential example of African-American independent filmmaking. Director Ed Bland, with the help of more than 60 volunteer crew members, intercuts scenes of life in Chicago’s black neighborhoods with interviews of interracial artists and intellectuals. Cry of Jazz argues that black life in America shares a structural identity with jazz music. With performance clips by the jazz composer, bandleader and pianist Sun Ra and his Arkestra, the film demonstrates the unifying tension between rehearsed and improvised jazz. Cry of Jazz is a historic and fascinating film that comments on racism and the appropriation of jazz by those who fail to understand its artistic and cultural origins.
Plot
The Cry of Jazz is set in Chicago at the meeting of a jazz appreciation club of musicians and intellectuals, both Black and White. It is broken up into seven parts. Parts one, three, five, and seven center around conversations among the jazz club members. Parts two, four, and six are done in a documentary style and utilize footage of life in Chicago as well as of Sun Ra's band performing the music. Alex, the film's main character, serves as narrator during these sections. Although the film is nominally about jazz, jazz is used primarily as a metaphor to understand the African American experience.Part 1
As the majority of the attendees of the jazz club leave, the crowd that remains is composed of two White men, Bruce and John, two White women, Natalie and Faye, and three Black men, Alex, Louis, and Bob. Alex overhears Bruce telling Natalie that rock and roll is jazz, which prompts a discussion about what jazz is. When Bruce asserts "jazz is merely the Negro's cry of joy and suffering," the White characters protest, upset with Bruce's implication that only Black people could have created jazz. Alex elaborates on Bruce's point, explaining "the Negro was the only one with the necessary musical and human history to create jazz."Part 2
Alex makes a direct comparison between the structure of jazz and the Black experience in the United States. Jazz plays over shots of Black neighborhoods of Chicago, an attempt to demonstrate the affinity between jazz and Black life. Alex continues to explain jazz as the "triumph of the Negro spirit" over the difficulties Black people face in a racist America. He links the restrictive form and changes of jazz to this limitation and suffering, and improvisation to an expression of joy and freedom within a restrictive society. Alex also argues that the sound of jazz reflects the "characteristic atmosphere, color, and sensuality" of Black life, just as the sound of jazz played by Whites reflects White life.Part 3
Bruce and Natalie again express confusion with the claim that Blacks see America differently than Whites. Alex responds that Black people see America in a unique way because they have never been fully included in American society yet have found ways to survive. Alex and Louis then assert that slavery and continued racism constitute an erasure of the past, present, and future of Black people in America and that, through music, Black people have created a record of their history.Part 4
Alex traces the history of jazz, including New Orleans jazz, swing, be-bop, and cool jazz. Footage of Sun Ra's band playing examples of each style accompanies the description of each type of jazz.Part 5
A discussion arises concerning what it would take to achieve racial equality in America. From Alex and Louis's perspective, America must come to celebrate the story of joy and suffering told through jazz because it is a story that transcends national and ethnic boundaries. When Natalie then asks about the future of jazz, Alex claims that jazz is dead, startling all the characters.Part 6
In Alex's opinion, jazz is dead because the form and the changes of jazz cannot evolve, and any alteration to the form and changes of jazz would not result in jazz. Alex claims that therefore, because jazz cannot grow, it is dead. While Alex asserts that this "jazz body" is dead, he maintains that the "spirit of jazz" is alive. He goes on to express that the "jazz body", which contains the restraining elements of jazz, must die because the social restraints on Black people in America must end.Part 7
The White characters continue to contest the death of jazz. Alex suggests that the "spirit of jazz" will give rise to a new form of music. When Bruce then asks how Whites fit into this story, Louis and Alex proclaim that what happens to Black people in America concerns Whites because it implicates their morality and humanity. The film ends with Alex's assertion that the world's perceptions of the United States will depend on American society's treatment of black people.Music
Production
In the early to mid 1950s the composer Edward Bland, novelist Mark Kennedy, city-planner Nelam Hill, and mathematician Eugene Titus conceived the idea for The Cry of Jazz. Together they formed KHTB Productions, which took its name from the first letter of each person's last name. It took several years for them to write the script, and several more to make the film itself. Bland assumed the role of director while maintaining his job as a postal worker, the income from which he devoted to the film. Along with Bland, Kennedy, Hill, and Titus contributed personal funds to the film, which amounted to a final budget of approximately $3,500. Given this minimal budget, Bland and his co-creators relied on an entirely volunteer cast and crew of 65 people to complete the production of The Cry of Jazz. Production of the film was completed in 1958, and it was released by KHTB in 1959.Sun Ra's involvement
As the production of The Cry of Jazz began, Bland, serving as the film's Musical Director, was responsible for scoring the film. Bland knew Sun Ra personally, as they were both living in Chicago at the time. Additionally, Bland was aware that Sun Ra owned the rights to his music released through El Saturn Records, his own record label. Ra and his business partner and co-owner of El Saturn, Alton Abraham, allowed Ra's music be used for The Cry of Jazz without charge in exchange for Bland's incorporation of live footage of Ra's band performing the music, as well as highlighting Ra's involvement in billing and publicity. While Bland found Sun Ra's music exciting and felt that it fit the aesthetic direction of the film, he was uninterested in Ra's eccentric personal philosophy and cosmology. Thus, this element of Sun Ra's career did not factor into his involvement with The Cry of Jazz. Bland and Sun Ra maintained a personal and professional relationship until 1967. According to Bland, by the mid-1960s, Sun Ra "was stressing his 'Sun God of Jazz' propaganda more than ever", and in addition began showing up late to recording sessions, prompting Bland to stop working with him.Sequel
Bland wrote the screenplay for a sequel to The Cry of Jazz titled The American Hero, but received 109 rejections from production companies, causing him to abandon the project. Bland gave this description of The American Hero in a 1960 article for the journal Film Culture:
"In our next film, which will be a 35mm feature length film amplifying and carrying further various facets of this film, we expect an even greater impact, primarily because the audience will not be able to use jazz as an escape."