The Real Ambassadors was a vibrant mix of humor, social commentary and swinging music. And it couldn’t have existed if Dave Brubeck hadn’t taken over the world with Time Out, his epochal 1959 record with alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, bassist Eugene Wright and drummer Joe Morello — because The Real Ambassadors was a passion project and almost certainly a money loser.

The Real Ambassadors is a jazz musical developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s by Dave and Iola Brubeck, in collaboration with Louis Armstrong and his band. It addressed the Civil Rights Movement, the music business, America’s place in the world during the Cold War, the nature of God, and a number of other themes. It was set in a fictional African nation called Talgalla, and its central character was based on Armstrong and his time as a jazz ambassador.

In writing this work, the Brubecks drew upon experiences that they, and their friends and colleagues, had touring various parts of the world on behalf of the US State Department. The Brubecks and Armstrong (among many other musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, and Duke Ellington) were part of a campaign by the State Department to spread American culture and music around the world during the Cold War, especially into countries whose allegiances were not well defined or that were perceived as being at risk of aligning with the Soviet Union. 

Among the events referenced, directly or indirectly, were the 1956 student riots in Greece in which stones were thrown at the US Embassy, which dissipated following performances by Dizzy Gillespie; Louis Armstrong’s 1956 visit to Ghana as the guest of Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah; and Armstrong’s dispute with the Eisenhower Administration and President Eisenhower personally over the handling of the 1957 Central High School Crisis in Little Rock, Arkansas. In 1957, Armstrong canceled his state-sponsored tour of the Soviet Union after President Eisenhower refused to enforce court-ordered desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas. “President Eisenhower should take these little children by the hand and lead them into that school” he erupted. “The way they are treating my people in the South, the government can go to hell.” After Eisenhower eventually acquiesced, Armstrong participated in the program.

The Real Ambassadors was able to capture the often complicated, and sometimes contradictory, politics of the State Departments tours during the Cold War Era. Addressing African and Asian nation building in addition to the US civil rights struggle, it satirically portrayed the international politics of the tour. The musical also addressed the prevailing racial issues of the day, but did so within the context of satire.

Despite Iola Brubeck’s intention for some of her lyrics to be light and humorous in presentation, believing that some of the messages would be better received if presented in a satirical manner, Armstrong saw this performance as an opportunity for him to address many of the racial issues that he had struggled with for his entire career, and he made a request to sing the songs straight. In one 2009 interview, Dave Brubeck remarked: “Now, we wanted the audience to chuckle about the ridiculous segregation, but Louis was cryin’… and every time we wanted Louis to loosen up, he’d sing ‘I’m really free. Thank God Almighty, I’m really free’. After years of demeaning roles in his public performances, The Real Ambassadors offered Armstrong material that was closer to his own sensibility and outlook. 

Music: From a performance at the 1962 Monterey Jazz Festival, Louis Armstrong sings “They Say I Look Like God.”

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It is one of the sad paradoxes in jazz history that for almost as long as this American music has existed, many of its foremost figures have chosen to live in exile. From Sidney Bechet in the 1920’s to Johnny Griffin in the 1980’s, these jazz expatriates acted out of a sense of imperative and necessity – the necessity to work, the necessity to be accepted as an artist, the necessity to be treated as a human being. Europe also offered pronounced commercial advantages, particularly when the American jazz scene began wilting under the assault of rock-and-roll.

Leaving one’s own country is never easy, and for a jazz musician it meant losing contact not only with friends and family but the social, racial and musicological well-springs of the sound.

For the jazz expatriates, life in Europe also proved rather less than idyllic. Many musicians had discovered that for all that recommended Europe, life on the Continent came at the price of dislocation, the loss of a sense of “home”. Some also learned that racism existed east as well as west of the Atlantic. 

Few of the jazz musicians who moved to Europe initially intended to do so. Most visited the Continent for limited tours and, finding an appreciative atmosphere, decided to stay. From overseas, the problems of America stood in painfully clear relief.

American jazz history abounds in racial horror stories from both sides of the Mason-Dixon line. ” ‘Round Midnight” alludes to the World War II court-martial of Lester Young, an action widely regarded as retribution for his marriage to a white woman. While touring with the Artie Shaw band, Billie Holiday was ordered to use the service elevator in the group’s hotel. The trumpeter Miles Davis, like Bud Powell, received an infamous beating by the police.

Yet many musicians returned to the U.S. Dexter Gordon, who was such a hero in Denmark that the locals dubbed him ”The King of Copenhagen,” missed the American black community. ”The happiest moments in Europe,” he said, ”were when you’d run into other cats and bands and someone would say, ‘Hey, you long, tall. . .’ Or the get-togethers when someone would get a care package from home – red beans and greens and grits. Just that taste of home.”

Music: From 1986, Dexter Gordon with “’Round Midnight.”

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Art Blakey’s The Freedom Rider is not only a testament to the symbiotic relationship between jazz and the civil rights movement. It’s a sonic rallying cry to stand and protest. Recorded in 1961 for Blue Note Records, this album is a rhythmic and sonic history lesson encapsulating an era fueled by the activism required to effect societal change.

In 1961, a group of courageous people called the Freedom Riders risked life and limb, challenging segregation in the Deep South with their model of nonviolent resistance and strategic planning. They rode interstate buses into the segregated Southern United States in 1961 and subsequent years to challenge the non-enforcement of the U.S. Supreme Court decisions which ruled that segregated public buses were unconstitutional. The Freedom Riders challenged this status quo by riding interstate buses in the South in mixed racial groups to challenge local laws or customs that enforced segregation in seating.

The Freedom Rides, and the violent reactions they provoked, bolstered the credibility of the American civil rights movement, and called national attention to the disregard for the federal law and the local violence used to enforce segregation in the south. Police arrested riders for trespassing, unlawful assembly, violating state and local Jim Crow laws, and other alleged offenses, but often they first let white mobs of counter-protestors attack the riders without intervention. In some places, such as Birmingham, Alabama, the police cooperated with Ku Klux Klan chapters and other white people opposing the actions and allowed mobs to attack the riders.

Blakey’s percussive narrative pays homage to their resilience as he leads his world-class band to join him in a call to action that still resonates decades later. Trumpeter Lee Morgan, saxophonist Wayne Shorter, pianist Bobby Timmons, and bassist Jymie Merritt are all in lockstep with Blakey. Blakey sounds more emotionally invested here than usual because he literally had skin in the game. Art Blakey was beaten badly by police in a racially charged confrontation while on tour during the 1940s, requiring surgery and the placement of a steel plate in his head. This record wasn’t just musical or political—it was personal. 

The Freedom Rider not only commemorates a pivotal historical movement but also underscores the enduring power of music as a vehicle for social change. It’s a reflection on the past that can inspire future generations, and a reminder that the movement isn’t over, and neither is the fight. And that as long as there’s rhythm, there’s resistance. 

Music: From 1961, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers “The Freedom Rider.”

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