NCHGS’s Museum and a Movie series showcases independent, international, and historical short films relevant to our museum exhibits and the communities we serve.
February 2022’s feature is The Cry of Jazz, a 1959 documentary from director Edward O. Bland that connects Jazz to African American history. Set in Chicago at a jazz appreciation club, the film is split into two alternating styles; conversations between club members, both black and white, are interspersed among documentary-style scenes of African American life in Chicago. Rather than being strictly a documentary about jazz as a musical genre, the film uses jazz as a metaphor for understanding the African American experience of living in Chicago in the 1950s.
In 2010, The Cry of Jazz was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry, citing it as a “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” film.
The Cry of Jazz is 34 minutes in length and will be shown at 1:00, 2:00, and 3:00 PM in the John R. Austen Auditorium of the Sigal Museum. Seating will be arranged to accommodate social distancing. Masks must be worn in the museum at all times.