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The following are excerpts from Essays written by Ed Bland. To read
each essay in its entirety please follow the links provided.
Personal Recollections of Sun Ra
1956-1957
In Chicago in the early 50s, a few
years after moving from playing jazz to musical composition, I asked
one of my jazz buddies if anyone was currently doing anything
innovative in jazz around the city.
Sun Ra was brought to my attention
because of his harmonic originality, arranging and orchestration
abilities, and his informal lecture series held in Washington Park
on the South Side. In those sessions, attended by various
jazz musicians, he preached that he was the Sun God of Jazz, Le Sun
Ra. He, Le Sun Ra, descended from¡ªor was related in some fashion
to¡ªthe Egyptian Pharaoh Iknathon.
Click here to read more.
African Pianism
This paper is from a talk delivered
during the "Conference on African Pianism" October 7-9, 1999, held
at the University of Pittsburgh - Dr. Akin Euba was the
conference chairman. Click on the following link to
read it in its entirety
African
Pianism
The Cry of Jazz
On the following page is an actual copy of a piece written by Ed Bland, in 1960, for
the magazine,
Film Culture, on
The Cry of Jazz.
Click here to read
it.
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