Louis Armstrong in 1956 on his first trip to Ghana. He performed in front of a crowd of 100,000. The Gold Coast record and world record of that time. Many Ghanaians, except for people “in the know” were not familiar with the sounds of Black American Jazz music.
In front of a smaller crowd, Louis Armstrong wants to see people dance. It took them a while but they slowly started getting in the groove and feeling the rhythms.
Louis Armstrong and many other Jazz musicians were known as “Jazz Ambassadors.” The US wanted to clean up its global image, and Jazz was a way to spread “positivity.” Armstrongs trip to Ghana was an effort to bridge gaps between Black American and continental Africans.
A big reason for “Jazz Ambassadors” was the Cold War with Russia. Jazz music was seen as “western encroachment” and a move “away from tradition” in many Russian circles. Here Louis Armstrong explains that the US wanted to send him and others to Russia just to play Jazz.
A Russian Propaganda cartoon from 1949. The story is about a Magpie that returns “from the west” and sings a new kind of music. Some Russian birds liked the new sounds, others did not. Notice the kind of music being “sung” is Jazz.
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