Cultural Diplomacy as Cultural Globalization: The University of Michigan Jazz Band in Latin America

Abstract

From January to May 1965 the University of Michigan Jazz Band traveled extensively in Latin America for the State Department's Cultural Presentations Program. This tour serves as a case study through which we can see the far-reaching effects of cultural diplomacy. The State Department initially envisioned its cultural and informational programs as one-way communication that brought ideas from the United States to new places; yet the tours changed not only audiences, but also the musicians themselves and even the communities to which the musicians returned. Both archival and oral history evidence indicate that the Michigan jazz band's tour succeeded in building vital imagined connections across international borders. The nature of these connections demonstrates that the cold war practice of pushing culture across borders for political purposes furthered cultural globalization—even though the latter process is often regarded by scholars as a phenomenon that began only after the end of the cold war. The jazz band's tour highlights the essential role of music and musicians in fostering new transnational sensibilities in the politicized context of the cold war.

Jazz Diplomacy: Promoting America in the Cold War Era. By Lisa E. Davenport. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2009.

“…1 In addition, several significant journal articles on jazz diplomacy have been produced, including Danielle Fosler-Lussier's "Cultural Diplomacy as Cultural Globalization: The University of Michigan Jazz Band in Latin America," published in this journal in 2010. 2 Meanwhile, scholars have also begun to consider government-funded promotions of other musical styles during the Cold War and music diplomacy in other countries and time periods. 3 In contrast to Von Eschen's seminal study, Davenport's Jazz Diplomacy focuses less on the details of the tours themselves and more on the political contexts and subtexts surrounding them.…”