Ed Bland papers

Ed Bland, also known as Edward Bland and Edward O. Bland, was an African American musician, arranger, and composer of contemporary classical music. Bland combined his background in jazz with formal training in European classical music to create works ranging from concert music for chamber orchestra, arrangements for commercial record releases, and television and film scores. As a one-time filmmaker, he wrote, directed, and produced the independent documentary The Cry of Jazz (1959), which explored the role of jazz music in African American history. The Library of Congress added the film to the National Film Registry in 2010.

Bland was born on July 25, 1926 in Chicago to Edward and Althea Bland; his father was a self-taught literary critic whose friends included Langston Hughes and Ralph Ellison. He began his career as a jazz musician playing saxophone and clarinet and studied privately under composer John J. Becker before attending the University of Chicago and the American Conservatory of Music. Bland worked as a freelance music producer from 1961 to 1994, composing, directing, and arranging music for commercial record companies and television networks. He composed and arranged pieces for Maya Angelou, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, and George Benson, as well as the PBS American Playhouse presentation of A Raisin in the Sun (1989). Bland also continued to work in film as musical director for Bill Gunn’s Ganja & Hess (1973) and orchestrator for A Soldier’s Story (1984).

Bland released five albums of concert work, including a compilation of ensemble, bassoon, clarinet, flute, and violin pieces on Urban Classical: The Music of Ed Bland (1994) and Dancing Through the Walls (1998), a dance suite for flute and virtual percussion. His chamber compositions, such as "Piece for Chamber Orchestra" (1979), were performed by the Baltimore, Detroit, Memphis, and St. Louis Symphony orchestras, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and the Brooklyn Philharmonic. From 1968 to 1975, he produced over 100 concerts for the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Bland's work was posthumously reinterpreted by pianist Judith Olson on Urban Counterpoint: The Piano Music of Ed Bland (2020).

Bland served as a presidential commissioner for the White House Record Library from 1979 to 1981 under President Jimmy Carter. He was also a member of the National Endowment for the Arts Recording Panel from 1988 to 1989.

Bland was married twice, first to Arlene Wirsing, with whom he had two children, sons Edward, who is deceased, and Robert; his second marriage was to writer Mary Batten, with whom he had a daughter, Stefanie. He died on March 14, 2013 in Smithfield, Virginia.