Friday 2/5 – Thursday 2/11
In 1959 Film Quarterly called Ed Bland’s 35-minute experimental film The Cry of Jazz “the first anti-white film”; another critic dubbed it “Negro chauvinism,” partly because it argues that “the Negro is the only human American.” Bland, who assailed white liberals’ sentimentalization of a musical form created under racism, juxtaposes shots of performers like Sun Ra with images of a black baby in a tenement and affluent white folks in Highland Park. Tonight’s screening of the film will include a discussion led by Northwestern University film professor Chuck Kleinhans. It’s at 8 in Ferguson Hall at Columbia College, 600 S. Michigan. Admission is $7. Call 773-384-5533 for more.
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9 TUESDAY Do songs like “You’re a Builder Upper,” “Make With the Kisses,” and “Look Out! I’m Romantic” ring a bell? They shouldn’t–they’re on the bill for A Rare Find: Forgotten Gems From the American Popular Songbook, a one-night-only solo nightclub debut by Reader contributor Justin Hayford. “This show is essentially payback for the hours I’ve spent gigging in piano bars,” he says. Showtimes are 8 and 10 tonight at Toulouse Cognac Bar, 2140 N. Lincoln Park West. Call 773-665-9071 for tickets, which are $7.
