And all that jazz

When I first went to Poland I took along some jazz music, thinking it would be novel. Well, the music was fine, but it was old news. Tonight I found out why. From the mid-1950s to the early 1970s, the State Department sponsored Jazz Tours. Musicians such as Brubeck, Louie Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Dizzy Gillepsie traveled in Africa, South American, and Eastern Europe and Russia to bring good music and good will.

This photo exhibit displays some of the great moments and smiling faces of children from Egypt to Burma. John Balien, from the U.S. Embassy spoke about how the Voice of America played jazz. Above is a photo of John with Zsuzsanna from American Corner as they opened the exhibit.

Above are two pictures of Brubeck. The top photo is from Poznan in 1956. The lower photo is from the Palace of Culture in Warsaw in the early 1970s. (I didn't forget Hungary. There are no photos of jazz ambassadors in Hungary.)

After lovely Hungarian refreshments, we moved to an auditorium for a jazz concert. This is the third concert I've been to this week. I began to think about hard it will be to leave Pecs. It is really a lovely place to be.