The Cold War and Civil Rights collide in this remarkable story of music, diplomacy and race. Beginning in 1955, when America asked its greatest jazz artists to travel the world as cultural ambassadors, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington and their mixed-race band members, faced a painful dilemma: how could they represent a country that still practiced Jim Crow segregation?
Leslie Odom Jr.
as Narrator
Quincy Jones
as Self
Dizzy Gillespie
as Self (archive footage)
Louis Armstrong
as Self (archive footage)
Darius Brubeck
as Self
Bill Crow
as Self
Duke Ellington
as Self (archive footage)
Charlie Persip
as Self
