Satchmo Blows Up the World

[EKE BBB]

Editorial Reviews (quoted from Amazon.com)

From Booklist

According to history professor Von Eschen, at a time when the cultural contributions of black Americans were being derided, the U.S. State Department found it useful to send luminaries of jazz music into the world as ambassadors, preceding covert actions in Europe and Africa. In this exploration of the significance of jazz as a propaganda tool during the cold war era, Von Eschen looks at how this phenomenon was reflected in the domestic civil rights movement. Using Louis Armstrong, "Satchmo," as her focus, she recounts privately sponsored international tours that provoked tensions and debates within the State Department. Opponents saw blacks and their creations of jazz and gospel as culturally inferior, while proponents argued that jazz was representative of America at its best and the tours were useful in advancing domestic and overseas agendas. This book puts fresh light on jazz, Satchmo, and the civil rights era. Vernon Ford

Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

Satchmo Blows Up the World provides the first comprehensive look at the 'jazz tours' sponsored by the U.S. government and literally follows them to the ends of the earth. Along the way, Von Eschen provides fascinating insights about them, the collisions of cultural politics and geopolitics, and the vicissitudes and upheavals of race in Cold War America. The history of U.S. diplomacy, jazz music and the civil rights era will never look quite the same after reading this wonderful book.

Product Description:

At the height of the ideological antagonism of the Cold War, the U.S. State Department unleashed an unexpected tool in its battle against Communism: jazz. From 1956 through the late 1970s, America dispatched its finest jazz musicians to the far corners of the earth, from Iraq to India, from the Congo to the Soviet Union, in order to win the hearts and minds of the Third World and to counter perceptions of American racism.

Penny Von Eschen escorts us across the globe, backstage and onstage, as Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and other jazz luminaries spread their music and their ideas further than the State Department anticipated. Both in concert and after hours, through political statements and romantic liaisons, these musicians broke through the government's official narrative and gave their audiences an unprecedented vision of the black American experience. In the process, new collaborations developed between Americans and the formerly colonized peoples of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East--collaborations that fostered greater racial pride and solidarity.

Though intended as a color-blind promotion of democracy, this unique Cold War strategy unintentionally demonstrated the essential role of African Americans in U.S. national culture. Through the tales of these tours, Von Eschen captures the fascinating interplay between the efforts of the State Department and the progressive agendas of the artists themselves, as all struggled to redefine a more inclusive and integrated American nation on the world stage.

Any comments?