The Jazz Ambassadors

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

The Jazz Ambassadors — Plot

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?

• Release date
• May 4, 2018
• Runtime
• 60 min
• Genres
• Documentary
• Director
• Hugo Berkeley

The Jazz Ambassadors — Cast

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

D

Darius Brubeck Self

B

Bill Crow Self Duke Ellington Self (archive footage)

C

Charlie Persip Self