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Jazz Ambassadors
Jazz Goes Global
In 1956, trumpeter and band leader Dizzy Gillespie was the first jazz musician to go on a US State Department-sponsored tour. For the government it was simple—jazz was an American-born art form, and the freedom of jazz improvisation was a metaphor for American political freedom.
For Black performers, representing America abroad was complicated by their personal experiences of racism at home. But the tours also provided an international platform to advocate for civil rights, the one issue, Duke Ellington reported, that he was most often asked about other than jazz. |