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The Jazz Ambassadors poster

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

The Jazz Ambassadors

7.020181h 0m
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?

Directed by Hugo Berkeley

Behind the scenes

Movie screenshots & stills

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CAST

The people behind the story

Leslie Odom Jr.
Leslie Odom Jr.Narrator
Quincy Jones
Quincy JonesSelf
Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy GillespieSelf (archive footage)
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Louis ArmstrongSelf (archive footage)
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Darius BrubeckSelf
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Bill CrowSelf
Duke Ellington
Duke EllingtonSelf (archive footage)
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Charlie PersipSelf

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