Quotes From 'The Cry Of Jazz'

“The negro is the only human american [...] If american’s had souls they would not have tried to take them away from us. You wiped out our past, we have no yesterday to look back on. With slavery, you wiped out our today. And the present day’s savagery is intended to deprive us of our tomorrow.” This quote from “The Cry of Jazz” has stuck with me for about ten hours now. The entire movie in fact was far more telling and for lack of a better term real than I expected. I suppose that is what I search for in a documentary, something which will give me a window into a life or culture I would not otherwise experience. On a personal level, I have always felt that I have not done enough to connect with my African heritage, so when something comes

along which allows me to further understand the struggles my grandparents and to some extent, my father went through, I truly savor the experience. In modern media civil rights is framed around garnering as much white support as is necessary, and while this is a valid strategy, it leads to a soft approach nothing like what is seen in “The Cry of Jazz”. The character (and narrator) Alex’s righteous anger over the disrespect from his friends, and the treatment of his people, represents something which would never happen now. Anger must be curtailed in order to avoid coming off as dangerous or uncivilised. I can not pass a value judgement on the usefulness of placation or anger towards the majority, but I can say the the latter is refreshing.
Another interesting note is Alex’s insistence that “jazz is dead”. I have no musical background, and am frankly incredibly incompetent when it comes to anything close to the subject; I often tap my foot or nod my head to a song, I also often lose the beat while doing so. My point is that I am in no position to judge this claim (or any of the musical claims). I did watch this movie with a friend who is also taking this class, and he left insisting that jazz was not dead. I find the statement interesting for different reasons. I think Alex did not mean it entirely literally, instead he meant of metaphorically, jazz being a metaphor for the African American spirit; it helps that the character practically spells it out that jazz represents Black Americans. The phrase “jazz is dead” then evokes the idea of the negro spirit waning, as well as the death of the genre. I a willing to defer to my friend on the subject of jazz’s current existence (as well as Sun Ra’s continued performances, and modern jazz). I will however offer a theory as to why jazz remains alive.
Jazz remains alive due to the meteoric rise in civil rights at and especially after the film’s release. Just one year after it’s release the civil rights movement picks up steam with the “lunch counter sit-ins” an organized effort of four college students sitting at a whites only counter. A year after that the Freedom Riders begin. My point being that around the time that the film was being made many advancements were around the corner. I can not say whether or not the narrator would have said the same things with foreknowledge, but I can say that it changes the situation surrounding the characters radically.