"Satchmo Blows Up the World" is a fine contribution to the growing
literature on the broader contours of cold war cultural
politics...The stories [Von Eschen] tells are marvelous and often
touching...But what comes across even more strongly in "Satchmo
Blows Up the World" is the flagrant paradox of a marginalized
people sent abroad to sing the praises of the very country that
marginalized them...Perhaps even more than the Americanization of
global culture, the enduring legacy of cold war musical diplomacy
was the internationalization of jazz.--Brian Morton"The Nation"
(06/27/2005)
A fascinating account of how the U.S. State department tried to win
the Cold War by appealing to hearts, minds and souls around the
world through its great jazz musicians. And, since most of the
musicians were black (Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington),
to create the impression of a country where racism was not an
issue.--Martin Levin"Globe and Mail" (10/21/2006)
At the height of the Cold War, the US launched a program that would
reach far beyond formal diplomacy: it started sending jazz artists
around the world playing America's music. Among the participants
were Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Dave
Brubeck, Benny Goodman, Charles Mingus, and Ornette Coleman. They
went to every part of the world, including the communist heartland.
In this well-written, detailed account of those 'jazz ambassadors,
' Von Eschen shows how the program during its 22 years exceeded any
possible expectations anyone could have had. In the first few
pages, she discusses the irony of using mostly black jazz artists
as symbols of the triumph of American democracy in what was still a
Jim Crow nation. While abroad, many of the musicians spoke frankly
and honestly about life in America and insisted on reaching out
beyond the elite audiences organized for their concerts. The
program's political impact was significant at a time when 40 new
African and Asian
From the mid-1950s through the late 1970s, the U.S. State
Department deployed an unlikely tool in the propaganda war against
the Soviet Union: federally funded global tours of jazz musicians,
especially African American performers. Penny M. Von Eschen's
fascinating "Satchmo Blows Up the World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the
Cold War" is both a giddy celebration of an American art form and a
disturbing reminder of the challenges of racial politics.--Phil
Hall"Hartford Courant" (12/19/2004)
From 1956 through the late 1970s, the United States government
blanketed the far corners of the world with jazz, not in the
service of the dollar, but in order to win the hearts and minds of
the wrongly committed...Penny Von Eschen's fine study of
'jam-bassadors' and the marooned hipsters who loved them pursues
this tension down to its queerest details.--Hua Hsu"The Wire"
(04/01/2005)
In "Satchmo Blows Up the World," Penny M. Von Eschen tells the
story of [a] neglected chapter of the Cold War with an acute
feeling for the complex motives of all the parties...There is now a
small cottage industry of work on the cultural Cold War, typified
by...influential conspiracy theories...Containment, hegemony, and
imperialism are among the buzzwords of this prosecutorial approach,
though their application to complex, ambitious art leaves much to
be desired. "Satchmo Blows Up the World" is a valuable corrective
to the one-sidedness of these books. Von Eschen does not slight the
propaganda value of the jazz tours. But she is alive to the mixed
motives of the official sponsors and the varying agendas of the
musicians, who were eager for appreciation and stimulated by their
encounter with distant cultures. She understands the enthusiasm of
far-flung audiences, locked in by their political system or by
local elites. She does not see them simply as objects of
ideological manipulation
In her fascinating and meticulously researched study of official
involvement in overseas tours by leading American jazz musicians
during the Cold War, Penny M. Von Eschen vividly and sometimes
mercilessly exposes the essentially two-faced nature of the
Government's attitude towards the music. At the same time, she
sheds much light on individual musicians' attitudes towards their
Government and towards the ideals it strove to promote in the
international cultural and political arenas in the period
c.1956-78.Exemplary in the wide range of source material from which
it efficiently draws (including official papers and other archival
sources, and personalinterviews featuring the first-hand testimony
of leading musicians caught up in the events--notably Dave and Iola
Brubeck), her account deftly draws on a huge range of supporting
literature relating to US politics, culture, and foreign policy.
The text is consistently readable, informative, and sometimes
entertaining, and likely to appeal a
Penny M. Von Eschen's account of jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong
("Satchmo") as a cultural envoy is a sophisticated and insightful
study of this process of interpretation and reinvention. It is,
furthermore, an examination of how Armstrong and others resisted
the commodification of their music and distortion of its
meaning...The best scholarship is multifaceted, and this work is no
exception. The book is sure to provide a lively point of entry for
students into the area of cultural diplomacy, and it will also
attract anyone interested in jazz, US studies, and cultural history
generally.--Brenda Gayle Plummer "International History Review
"
The prominence of jazz in Cold War-era cultural diplomacy is well
known...But Penny M. Von Eschen's book offers the broadest and most
in-depth treatment to date, with specific attention to the ironies
and contradictions inherent in the U.S. government's promoting
African American culture abroad while waffling on racial justice,
civil rights, and public funding for the arts at home...Using State
Department documents, U.S. and foreign press accounts, and
musicians' oral and written reminiscences, she has written an
engrossing narrative about how jazz musicians experienced and
(re)configured their roles as cultural ambassadors, while
addressing multiple overlapping themes about race, representation,
aesthetics, activism, and the possibilities of musical
diplomacy.--E. Taylor Atkins "American Historical Review "
This book fascinates on many levels. Whether for juicy anecdotes or
a potted history of jazz in Soviet Russia, where the Americans were
amazed by the expertise of fans, this is where to look.--Michael
Church"The Independent" (02/01/2005)
This is an important book...It is a revealing look at how jazz and
jazz musicians used, and were used by, our government at a time
when the music had almost been forgotten in this country.--Thomas
Jacobsen"New Orleans Times-Picayune" (02/27/2005)
(Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington), to create the
impression of a country where racism was not an issue.
committed...Penny Von Eschen's fine study of 'jam-bassadors' and
the marooned hipsters who loved them pursues this tension down to
its queerest details.
consistently readable, informative, and sometimes entertaining, and
likely to appeal as much to the general reader as to the specialist
in either jazz or US international affairs.
for students into the area of cultural diplomacy, and it will also
attract anyone interested in jazz, US studies, and cultural history
generally.
marginalized them...Perhaps even more than the Americanization of
global culture, the enduring legacy of cold war musical diplomacy
was the internationalization of jazz.
program's political impact was significant at a time when 40 new
African and Asian nations were emerging and the Civil Rights
Movement was gaining momentum in the US. Deserv[es] a wide
audience.
themes about race, representation, aesthetics, activism, and the
possibilities of musical diplomacy.
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