Photo Essay Reaction

This project was very interesting. I chose to focus on a topic that I had a limited knowledge on. The subject of jazz musicians being sent abroad as ambassadors was discussed in a foreign policy class I took, as well as a class on American Popular Culture.

Finding photographs for this essay was not that simple, though I knew immediately what I wanted the essay to be comprised of. However, obtaining photographs that illustrated the points I wanted to make was difficult. First of all, I tried to get most of my photographs from government websites, so as to try and avoid copyright issues. The majority of the government websites that I researched had very little, if any, photographs of jazz musicians overseas. The photographs of President Eisenhower and that which I used to illustrate segregation in the United States were the easiest to find.

I ended up doing a google search for the musicians and got a very large amount of hits. From there I limited to the search to apply only to government websites. This severely limited my options. The photograph of Dave Brubeck and his band was found within an article on the National Endowment for the Arts website, and that of Dizzy Gillespie was on the America’s Story section of the Library of Congress website. I had hoped to get a photograph of Louis Armstrong as well, as he was one of the more famous jazz ambassadors. However, with the limit of five pictures, I decided to go with those that gave the most complete picture of the jazz ambassadors’ experiences, so Louis Armstrong had to be cut out.

All in all, I really enjoyed this assignment. It took me awhile to find each of the photographs, but I learned more about the topic as I was searching for them. After creating this essay I am more interested in reading about the experiences of the jazz musicians overseas during the Cold War.

Cultural Diplomacy: The Jazz Ambassadors

Dwight D. Eisenhower was the United State’s thirty-fourth President. In August of 1954, as a response to Cold War tensions, he requested special appropriations in “cultural and artistic fields” from the Senate (Von Eshen, 4).

The United States government sent jazz musicians overseas as a form of cultural diplomacy. Dave Brubeck, a jazz pianist, and his band were sent to Poland, Turkey, East and West Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Ceylon, Iran and Iraq (Gioia).

The musicians were meant to show the rest of the world that the United States was a democratic nation that embraced different races. However, this message was counteracted by the blatant examples of racial inequality in American society.

Dizzy Gillespie, a popular jazz trumpeter, was Eisenhower’s first “jazz ambassador.” Though hired to be a symbol of the United States, Gillespie was not willing to ignore his personal convictions regarding racism in America. After avoiding an official State Department briefing, he stated, “I’ve got three hundred years of briefing. I know what they’ve done to us and I’m going to make any excuses” (Von Eshen, 34).

In 1960, after returning from their overseas tour Dave Brubeck and his wife Iola wrote “The Real Ambassadors,” a musical commentary on race relations in the United States based around their experiences as cultural ambassadors for the State Department. The score was performed only once, at the 1962 Monterey Jazz Festival, by Brubeck, Louis Armstrong and the cast of the recorded album where it received rave reviews (“The Real Ambassadors”). However, it was decided that such a show could not be unleashed on the racially charged United States at that time.

Bibliography

Gioia, Dana. “Dana Gioia Interviews Dave Brubeck on Cultural Diplomacy.” National Endowment for the Arts, (2006), http://www.nea.gov/about/NEARTS/11-2006vol2/11jazz4.html, (accessed March 1, 2008).

“The Real Ambassadors.” http://therealambassadors.com, (accessed March 1, 2008).

Von Eschen, Penny M. Satchmo Blows Up the World. (Cambridge: President and Fellows of Harvard College), 2004.

Photographs

“Colored Entrance of Movie House.” American Memory Collection. Library of Congress. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/may18.html. (accessed March 1, 2008

“Dave Brubeck and Band.” National Endowment for the Arts. http://www.nea.gov/about/NEARTS/11-2006vol2/11jazz4.html. (accessed March 1, 2008).

“Dizzy Gillespie.” America’s Story. Library of Congress. http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/modern/jb_modern_dizzy_2_e.html. (accessed March 1, 2008).

“Dwight D. Eisenhower.” The President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. Department of Health and Human Services. http://www.fitness.gov/50thanniversary/photos-firstfiftyyears/DwightDEisenhower-circa1956.jpg. (accessed March 1, 2008).

“The Real Ambassadors.” http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51HVKGW9V2L._AA240_.jpg. (accessed March 1, 2008).