This Friday - Sunday
Nov 19-21
Ed Bland’s seminal, legendary THE CRY OF JAZZ
Newly-preserved print of landmark jazz essay-film
Part essay, part manifesto
Music is provided by the singular Sun Ra and his Arkestra
One of the most radical films of its era
Newly restored and screening for the first time in 35mm, THE CRY OF JAZZ stands tall as one of the most radical films of its era and a definitive landmark of the New American Cinema movement. Celebrated by Jonas Mekas and derided by James Baldwin among many others, CRY is one of the earliest and most outspoken documentary films made by an African-American. Produced many years before the blossoming Black Power movement, CRY presents a still controversial and completely riveting analysis of jazz and African-American culture that is as searing as it is honest. ...
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This Friday - Sunday
Nov 19-21
Ed Bland’s seminal, legendary THE CRY OF JAZZ
Newly-preserved print of landmark jazz essay-film
Part essay, part manifesto
Music is provided by the singular Sun Ra and his Arkestra
One of the most radical films of its era
Newly restored and screening for the first time in 35mm, THE CRY OF JAZZ stands tall as one of the most radical films of its era and a definitive landmark of the New American Cinema movement. Celebrated by Jonas Mekas and derided by James Baldwin among many others, CRY is one of the earliest and most outspoken documentary films made by an African-American. Produced many years before the blossoming Black Power movement, CRY presents a still controversial and completely riveting analysis of jazz and African-American culture that is as searing as it is honest.
Intercutting incredible street footage of Chicago African-American life with a staged interracial party, CRY is part essay, part manifesto, and as startling today as it must have been in the late 1950s. Music is provided by the singular Sun Ra and his Arkestra, who are seen and heard performing at the height of their swing heyday. Shot with practically no budget by a volunteer crew numbering some 65 people, THE CRY OF JAZZ was the only film made by Ed Bland who went on to have a distinguished career as composer, arranger, and producer for the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Elvin Jones, and many, many others.
“Bland’s…insights into the art and politics of jazz…are profound. …[Bland] defines jazz in terms of African-American experience, relates its form and sound to its political implications, and, remarkably, predicts both the aesthetic of free jazz and the music’s role in the civil-rights movement. Filmed performances of the Chicago-based visionary Sun Ra and his band (notably the great saxophonist John Gilmore) illustrate Bland’s theses and arouse the director’s keenest visual engagement. The ideas are debatable, but they’re also stimulating; the movie, which is as heartfelt as it is analytical, suggests a new dimension in music criticism.” –Richard Brody, NEW YORKER
(1959, 34 minutes, 16mm-to-35mm blow-up, b&w. Restored by Anthology Film Archives with funding provided by The Film Foundation. Lab work by Cineric Inc.; sound restoration by BluWave Audio. Additional support from The Orphans Film Symposium.)
THE CRY OF JAZZ will be screening with:
Robert Frank & Alfred Leslie
PULL MY DAISY
(1959, 28 minutes, 35mm, b&w)
Released the same year as THE CRY OF JAZZ, PULL MY DAISY is the cornerstone of Beat cinema. Based on an unfinished stage play by Jack Kerouac and inspired by an incident in the life of Neal and Carolyn Cassady, DAISY tells the story of a railway brakeman whose painter wife invites a respectable bishop over for dinner. But the protagonist’s bohemian friends (including Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, and Peter Orlovsky) crash the party, and merry revelry ensues…
Total running time: ca. 70 minutes.
Showing: Friday, November 19 through Sunday, November 21 at 7:15 & 9:00 nightly.
Directions: Anthology is at 32 Second Ave. at 2nd St. Subway: F to 2nd Ave; 6 to Bleecker. Tickets: $9 general; $8 Essential Cinema (free for members); $7 for students, seniors, & children (12 & under); $6 AFA members.
Web: http://www.anthologyfilmarchives.org
Twitter: http://twitter.com/anthologyfilm
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