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Satchmo Blows Up the World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War By Penny M. Von Eschen
2004 | 342 Pages | ISBN: 0674015010 | PDF | 3 MB
Penny Von Eschen ends Satchmo Blows up the World with, "For more than two decades, all over the globe, America was associated with jazz, civil rights, African American culture, and egalitarianism - not because the jazz ambassadors claimed to represent a free country, but because they identified so deeply with global struggles for freedom" (Von Eschen, Satchmo Blows up the World 252). The quote exemplifies the ideological rivalry of the Cold War. As a response to the ideological antagonism, the U.S. State Department let loose a most unorthodox weapon vis-à-vis Communism: jazz (Von Eschen, Satchmo Blows up the World 1-26). Starting from 1956 and continuing until the end of the 1970s, America sent out its best jazz musicians to the far corners of the earth, in an effort "to win the hearts and minds" of the Third World and , ironically, to counter world opinions about an American form of racism (Von Eschen, Satchmo Blows up the World 58-91). Von Eschen tours us across the world with jazz luminaries like Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, as they spread their music (and their ideas) further than the State Department could ever imagine (Von Eschen, Satchmo Blows up the World 1, 58, 121, and 250). Finally, while historian Thomas Borstelmann crafts his story from the perspective of presidents and policymakers, Von Eschen writes her story from the point of view of the African Americans who drew motivation from the independence movements in Africa.Through the stories of gigs and tours, Von Eschen articulates the amazing interconnection between the agendas of the State Department and the progressive ideas of the artists themselves (Von Eschen, Satchmo Blows up the World 126-128). Von Eschen shows us the artist's efforts to redefine the boundaries and realign the contours in an effort to redefine America on the world stage. The artists engaged their audiences both in concert and after hours, through official political statements and/or romantic liaisons (Von Eschen, Satchmo Blows up the World 121-147). The musicians broke through official government limits and allowed their audiences an unorthodox and unmatched view of the black American experience (Von Eschen, Satchmo Blows up the World 43-47). Though initially planned as a color-blind foisting of democracy, this one of a kind Cold War strategy unintentionally showed the essential role of African Americans, as stated previously, in U.S. national culture. The new collaborations developed between Americans and the formerly colonized peoples of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East instead fostered a sense of solidarity and pride (Von Eschen, Satchmo Blows up the World 71-72 and 75-76).