jazz diplomacy

American Music Abroad is a people-to-people cultural exchange program designed to promote American music and culture on the global music scene. As part of the 2017 "American Music Abroad" program, Jonathan Scales Fourchestra is scheduled to visit Taiwan, China, Hong Kong and Indonesia as cultural ambassadors, the AIT said. 

Students from Cuba's top music academy will present a free concert of big band jazz with a Cuban accent in New Orleans on Thursday (Jan. 5). The nonprofit group Horns to Havana says the 14-member high school jazz band from Havana's Conservatorio Amadeo Roldan will be in town Monday through Jan. 10 for a jazz and cultural exchange program with the Preservation Hall Foundation. 

July 1, 2016

What began two and half years ago as a dream cultural connection between Harlem and Havana, Cuba, is practically a reality.[...] Lloyd Williams, president and CEO of the Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce, said, “We have worked out an agreement with the Cuban Ministry of Culture that on an annual basis, in winter, it will be Harlem going to Havana … and during the summer months, it will be Havana coming to Harlem. During that appearance here, they will participate in Harlem Week.”

Marko Marcinko traveled the world many times over during his long career as an in-demand jazz drummer. Cuba, however, had long been out of reach for the well-known Scranton musician, just as it had been for most Americans for more than a half century. But the United States’ recent reestablishment of formal relations with the Communist Caribbean country led to new and exciting travel opportunities for Americans, musicians among them.

Washington, DC 30 April ' The fifth annual International Jazz Day celebration came to a thrilling close on Saturday night with the worldwide broadcast and streaming of the International Jazz Day 2016 All-Star Global Concert from the White House.

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama will host "Jazz at the White House," airing on International Jazz Day, Saturday, April 30 (8-9pm EST), on ABC. The one-hour primetime television special will feature an extraordinary array of artists from around the world paying tribute to the truly American art form of jazz.

April 8, 2016

Whet your appetite with this culinary and culturally focused PD News roundup. 

It's 9:30 on a Thursday night and Chinese and foreign jazz fans descend on the JZ Club in Shanghai's former French Concession. Glasses clink and the splashing sound of cymbals ripple through a cabaret setting bathed in soft red light. Andrew Field, an American historian, says clubs like JZ represent a return to Shanghai's cosmopolitan past.

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