The Jazz Ambassadors

2018 · 60 min · Documentary

The untold story of America's coolest weapon in the Cold War

The Cold War and Civil Rights collide in this remarkable story of music, diplomacy and race. Beginning in 1955, when America asked its greatest jazz artists to travel the world as cultural ambassadors, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington and their mixed-race band members, faced a painful dilemma: how could they represent a country that still practiced Jim Crow segregation?

Director: Hugo Berkeley
Released: May 4, 2018
Language: English

Cast

Leslie Odom Jr.
Narrator
Quincy Jones
Self
Dizzy Gillespie
Self (archive footage)
Louis Armstrong
Self (archive footage)
Darius Brubeck
Self
Bill Crow
Self
Duke Ellington
Self (archive footage)
Charlie Persip
Self

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