A Phenomenon of the Cold War - Jazz Diplomacy

The period of the Cold War is known as a rivalry between the democratic United States and the communist Soviet Union. Due to the fear of spreading communism, the United States realized that one of the options how to avoid this ideology to proliferate is to win the hearts and minds of the peoples around the world. And therefore, jazz diplomacy, which belongs to cultural diplomacy, was the best option that the United States took, because it did not put pressure on the public as did propaganda.

In 1954, President D. Eisenhower gave a challenging task to his team. The task was to figure out a way how the American artists could positively represent the culture and values of the United States abroad, and therefore help to avoid spreading of communism. That was the birth of using jazz as a cultural diplomacy. The American government sent the best African-American jazz artists as ambassadors all over the world, because they believed that introducing American culture and values will be a pathway towards further political and economic interests, which later on became the case, for instance in Ghana. American international broadcasting through the Voice of America helped to emphasize touring of jazz artists worldwide, for instance to Turkey, Afghanistan, Kabul, the Soviet Union, Poland, and so on. Majority of the American population did not support the idea of financing and choosing African-Americans to represent the United States as such. However, “the artists began to demand various requests on the government, because the government did not want to recognize them as artists for a long time, because if there were not jazz ambassadors, the American government would never be able to present the United States as such in few places”(Eschen, 2004).

The lyrics of a song called “Remember, who you are”, Armstrong and Brubeck ironically describe how they were receiving advice about the cultural diplomacy and how to successfully represent the United States. It is possible to listen to when you click on the lyrics.

Remember, who you are

(Louis Armstrong):

Remember who you are and what you represent.

Always be a credit for your government.

No matter what you say or what you do,

The eyes of the world are watching you.

Remember who you are and what you represent…

(Trummy Young):

Remember who you are and what you represent.

Never face a problem, always circumvent.

Stay away from issues.

Be discreet – when controversy enters, you retreat.

To conclude, cultural diplomacy has many benefits. Jazz diplomacy has lead to a number of following consequences. For instance, it “reached influential members of foreign societies, who couldn’t be reached through traditional embassy functions; and it reached out to young people, to non-elites, to broad audiences with a much reduced language barrier” (U.S. Department of State, 2005); the talent of African-Americans in a way speeded up the civil rights movement; American culture and values were spread positively and certainly transformed the views in many countries, including the Soviet Union, about the United States; despite the fact that hard power was the major danger, cultural diplomacy as a type of soft power gained significant importance as probably never before; and also the fact that cultural diplomacy, including jazz musicians, is seen as crucial at present because it enables foreign public to engage with the American culture. At the end of the day, jazz diplomacy fulfilled its purpose; it won the hearts and minds of people, because music does not divide peoples according to religion, ethnicity, or language; it unites the global society.

Resources used:

· Cultural Diplomacy: The Linchpin of Public Diplomacy. Report of the Advisory Committee on Cultural Diplomacy, U. S. Department of State, 2005, accessed at: http://iwp.uiowa.edu/about/CulturalDiplomacyReport.pdf

· Davenport, L., E. (2009) Jazz Diplomacy Promoting America in the Cold War Era, Jackson, University Press of Mississippi

· Eschen, P.M. (2004) Satchmo Blows up the World, London, Harvard University Press

· Gioia, D.: Cool Jazz and the Cold War: Interview with Dave Brubeck, National Endowment for the Arts, 4\2006