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

This documentary talks to women training with machine guns, to undergraduates taking courses in How to Stay Alive, to retired generals who run schools for mercenary killers, and to self-appointed clergy who say their native America has "gone soft on the Devil and the Reds" and has become a "Disneyland for Dummies".

6.0

Black Power: A British Story of Resistance

Mar 25, 2021

An examination of the Black Power movement in the late 1960s in the UK, surveying both the individuals and the cultural forces that defined the era. At the heart of the documentary is a series of astonishing interviews with past activists, many of whom are speaking for the first time about what it was really like to be involved in the British Black Power movement, bringing to life one of the key cultural revolutions in the history of the nation.

5.6

Disco and Atomic War

Apr 10, 2009

A different history of the Cold War: how Estonians under Soviet tyranny began to feel the breeze of freedom when a group of anonymous dreamers successfully used improbable methods to capture the Finnish television signal, a window into Western popular culture, brave but harmless warriors who helped change the fate of an entire nation.

0.0

Betrayed: Surviving an American Concentration Camp

May 1, 2022

The story of the unjust incarceration of Japanese Americans and the loss of civil rights.

7.8

The Helsinki Effect

Feb 21, 2025

The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) was the starting point for the slow but sure collapse of communist authoritarian rule in Eastern Europe. The Helsinki Effect offers new perspectives on the events of the Cold War. The film tells the story of the CSCE process, which had a major impact on the end of the Cold War, and sheds light on secret top-level discussions behind closed doors, through voice simulations using artificial intelligence.

8.0

Last to Know

Feb 11, 2006

In the documentary Last To Know political prisoners, sent to jail for openly opposing the East German regime that existed until the German reunification in 1990, talk about their times of trial and their lives today. Neither they, nor their families have come to terms with what happened.

No Image Available

5.0

Alert Today - Alive Tomorrow

Nov 7, 1956

This short shows how the city of Reading, Pennsylvania would implement civil defense procedures to help residents survive a nuclear attack. Through a network of volunteers, makeshift hospitals would be set up, auxiliary police officers would maintain order, and other elements of the civil defense program would be put in place.

8.0

Kamasi Washington Live At The Apollo Theater

Feb 6, 2020

Tenor saxophonist, composer and producer Kamasi Washington and his band perform a special show at Harlem's legendary Apollo Theater for the theatre's 85th year anniversary. Washington explores Harlem's rich musical and cultural history and the city's influence on his generation of artists.

No Image Available

1.0

Stories of A

Oct 16, 1974

French documentary campaigning for the liberalization of abortion and contraception, directed by Charles Belmont and Marielle Issartel in 1973.

5.6

Steal This Film

Aug 21, 2006

Steal This Film focuses on Pirate Bay founders Gottfrid Svartholm, Fredrik Neij and Peter Sunde, prominent members of the Swedish filesharing community. The makers claimed that 'Old Media' documentary crews couldn't understand the internet culture that filesharers took part in, and that they saw peer-to-peer organization as a threat to their livelihoods. Because of that, they were determined to accurately represent the filesharing community from within. Notably, Steal This Film was released and distributed, free of charge, through the same filesharing networks that the film documents.

0.0

Serving in Secret: Love, Country, and Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Nov 12, 2023

Tracing the U.S. military's long history of discrimination against the gay community and one couple's personal journey for acceptance.

7.7

Let It Fall: Los Angeles 1982-1992

Apr 21, 2017

An in-depth look at the culture of Los Angeles in the ten years leading up to the 1992 uprising that erupted after the verdict of police officers cleared of beating Rodney King.

6.0

The Order of Myths

Jul 25, 2008

In 2007 Mobile, Alabama, Mardi Gras is celebrated... and complicated. Following a cast of characters, parades, and parties across an enduring color line, we see that beneath the surface of pageantry lies something else altogether.

0.0

The Picture Taker

Oct 27, 2022

From his Memphis studio, Ernest Withers’ nearly 2 million images were a treasured record of Black history but his legacy was complicated by decades of secret FBI service revealed only after his death. Was he a friend of the civil rights community, or enemy—or both?

0.0

Oscar Peterson: Music in the Key of Oscar

Jan 1, 1995

This riveting music documentary traces the history of Jazz piano legend Oscar Peterson, from his early days as Montreal's teenage Boogie-Woogie sensation through his meteoric rise to international celebrity with Norman Granz and the ground-breaking Jazz at the Philharmonic and beyond. In this award-winning autobiographical portrait, legendary jazz pianist Oscar Peterson narrates his story, from his beginnings in smoke-filled Montreal clubs to hallmark performances with jazz greats. Concert footage includes an unforgettable combo -- Nat King Cole with Jazz at the Philharmonic and the Oscar Peterson Trio Wall reunion. Quincy Jones, Ella Fitzgerald and Dizzy Gillespie are interviewed, among others. - Ray Brown, Herb Ellis, Ella Fitzgerald

8.0

McCarthy

Jan 6, 2020

"McCarthy" chronicles the rise and fall of Joseph McCarthy, the Wisconsin senator who came to power after a stunning victory in an election no one thought he could win. Once in office, he declared that there was a vast conspiracy threatening America — emanating not from a rival superpower, but from within. Free of restraint or oversight, he conducted a crusade against those he accused of being enemies of the state, a chilling campaign marked by groundless accusations, bullying intimidation, grandiose showmanship and cruel victimization. With lawyer Roy Cohn at his side, he belittled critics, spinning a web of lies and distortions while spreading fear and confusion. After years in the headlines, he was brought down by his own excesses and overreach. But his name lives on linked to the modern-day witch hunt we call “McCarthyism.”

7.8

The Rape of Recy Taylor

May 30, 2019

Recy Taylor, a 24-year-old black mother and sharecropper, was gang raped by six white boys in 1944 Alabama. Common in Jim Crow South, few women spoke up in fear for their lives. Not Recy Taylor, who bravely identified her rapists. The NAACP sent its chief rape investigator Rosa Parks, who rallied support and triggered an unprecedented outcry for justice. The film exposes a legacy of physical abuse of black women and reveals Rosa Parks’ intimate role in Recy Taylor’s story.

No Image Available

10.0

But... Seriously

Mar 25, 1994

A documentary juxtaposing the events of the 20th century with the commentary of stand-up comedians.