Nelam L. Hill (1926-1992) was an urban planner and filmmaker who collaborated with Ed Bland, a jazz musician and composer, to make the film The Cry of Jazz (1959). The collection contains the film and two audio recordings of music by Ed Bland, dating from 1976 to 1980.
Nelam L. Hill (1926-1992) was an urban planner and filmmaker who collaborated with Ed Bland, a jazz musician and composer, to make The Cry of Jazz (1959) and other films.
In the mid-1950s, Hill joined Ed Bland; novelist Mark Kennedy, and mathematician Eugene Titus, to form KHTB Productions and finance the film The Cry of Jazz. Hill was one of the producers and writers of the film, as well as a member of the sound crew. The film was selected for the Library of Congress National Film Registry in 2010.
In the 1970s, he served as the assistant director for the borough of Brooklyn at the New York State Urban Development Corporation (UDC), and then as project director for the newly developed UDC subsidiary, Harlem Development Corporation. He was coordinator of the Master Plan Task Force for Newark, New Jersey, in 1977. In 1978, Hill co-founded the Vanguard Urban Improvement Association, Inc. to improve living conditions in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. From 1979 until his death in 1992, he managed his own consulting firm, Nelam L. Hill & Associates.
The collection contains the film The Cry of Jazz (1959), and two audio recordings of music by Ed Bland, dating from 1976 to 1980. They are organized alphabetically by title. The Cry of Jazz features performances by Sun Ra and his Arkestra, and the Paul Severson quartet.
Martin Hill, 1993.
Collection inventoried by Christopher Arena and Nathan Evans. Collection processed and described by Lyric Evans-Hunter, archivist. Finding aid published in 2025.
See the Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books Division for the Nelam L. Hill papers, Sc MG 466.
At the time of publishing, one film is not available pending digitization.