Movie
The Jazz Ambassadors (2018)
The untold story of America's coolest weapon in the Cold War
Documentary
Story
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 Starring: Leslie Odom Jr., Quincy Jones, Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong
The Jazz Ambassadors Cast
- Leslie Odom Jr. as Narrator
- Quincy Jones as Self
- Dizzy Gillespie as Self (archive footage)
- Louis Armstrong as Self (archive footage)
- Darius Brubeck as Self
- Bill Crow as Self
- Duke Ellington as Self (archive footage)
- Charlie Persip as Self
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