The Cry of Jazz

Filmed in Chicago, finished in 1959, The Cry of Jazz is filmmaker, composer and arranger Edward O. Bland’s polemical essay on the politics of music and race, a forecast of what he called ‘the death of jazz’. A landmark moment in black film, foreseeing the civil unrest of subsequent decades, it also features the only known footage of visionary pianist Sun Ra from his beloved Chicago period and an otherwise unreleased Arkestral soundtrack.