2009

39.25 inches wide by 29.5 inches high, acrylic and pigment ink on canvas

This painting depicts six of the “Jazz Ambassadors” who participated in the United States Department of State program, from the1950s until the early 1970s, that sent jazz musicians all around the world to build international friendships (and compete with the USSR for the “hearts and minds” of the world). The musicians represented in this painting are, from top left, in a clockwise direction: Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan, Count Basie (detail below), Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington (detail below) and Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong.

Situated between Gillespie and Basie, is a depiction of the 1957 incident when the “Little Rock 9”, a group of African-American students, were escorted up the steps of Little Rock Central High School after initially being prevented from entering. Prior to President Eisenhower's intervention, Armstrong, frustrated that President Eisenhower was letting Arkansas Governor Orville Faubus forbade the entrance of black students in Little Rock schools, declared that he was dropping plans to participate in a government-backed trip to Russia as a cultural ambassador “because of the way they are treating my people in the South.” Armstrong later rejoined the Jazz Ambassador program.

This painting (see details below) was created to be part of the “Jam Session: America’s Jazz Ambassadors Embrace the World” exhibit at the Jazz Heritage Center in San Francisco, in June, 2009. For more information on the traveling Jazz Ambassadors exhibit see the web site of the Meridian International Center.

Source photographs used for reference include the following:

Dizzy Gillespie and Duke Ellington based on photographs by Kim Nalley's great uncle Reggie Jackson

(see Kim's web site and my painting, Generations, of her and her grandmother), © Reggie Jackson;

Louis Armstrong based on photo of Louis Armstrong entertaining children at the Tahhseen Al-Sahha Medical Center, Cairo, Egypt, 1961 © Louis Armstrong House Museum;

Benny Goodman based on a photo of Benny Goodman performing for a young audience in Red Square, Moscow, Soviet Union, 1962, © Irving S. Gilmore Music Library, Benny Goodman Papers, Yale University;

Count Basie based on a photo of Count Basie at the final rehearsal of the popular Burmese song, Emerald Dusk, in Rangoon, Burma, 1971, © Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries, Fayetteville;

Sarah Vaughan based on a photo of Sarah Vaughan performing at the Newport Beograd Festival,Belgrade, Yugoslavia, 1973 © Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries, Fayetteville.

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