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Kind of Blue

(8,709 posts) Sun Mar 31, 2019, 08:21 AM Mar 2019

The Cry Of Jazz (1959) [View all]

The Cry of Jazz is a 1959 documentary film by Ed Bland that connects jazz to African American history. It uses footage of Chicago's black neighborhoods and performances by Sun Ra, John Gilmore, and Julian Priester interspersed with scenes of musicians and intellectuals, both black and white, conversing at a jazz club. It has been credited with predicting the urban riots of the 1960s and 70s, and has also 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

...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.

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. Only 34 minutes long. Parts one, three, five, and seven center around conversations between 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 utilized primarily as a metaphor through which to understand the African American experience.

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