The Jazz Ambassadors

The Jazz Ambassadors
2018
★★★★☆ 7.0/10
⏱️ 60 min
📅 Released
🌐 EN
Documentary
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?

Cast

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

Crew

Director
Hugo Berkeley
Producer
Mick Csáky

Production

Normal Life Pictures, Antelope

Keywords

cold warjazz singer or musiciancivil rightsracial segregationjim crow lawsrace relations