The Jazz Ambassadors

May 4, 2018

1h 0m

★ 7.0

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

Overview

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?

Genres

Documentary

Production Companies

Normal Life Pictures

Antelope

The Jazz Ambassadors Trailers

Cast

Narrator

Leslie Odom Jr.

Self

Quincy Jones

Self (archive footage)

Dizzy Gillespie

Self (archive footage)

Louis Armstrong

Self

Darius Brubeck

Self

Bill Crow

Self (archive footage)

Duke Ellington

Self

Charlie Persip

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