Jazz: A Great American Export

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Louis Armstrong entertains children at the Tahhseen Al-Sahha Medical Center. Cairo, Egypt, 1961. Courtesy of the Louis Armstrong House Museum.

Jazz is one of those rare phenomena that resonate across cultures. Meridian couldn’t help but notice the recent American Security Project article by Chad Tragakis about the United States government’s mass export of this American music genre during the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. Jazz diplomacy, as it came to be known, introduced and shared a unique piece of American culture to the world by sending jazz legends, such as Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Dave Brubeck, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Benny Carter, and Sarah Vaughan, to countries in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Since then, jazz music...

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Egyptian Group Fabrica begins tour of US

Posted under: Center for Global Leadership By /

Cast members from Fabrica performing songs from Les Miserables at Busboys and Poets.

For many members of the Egyptian musical group Fabrica, their current visit to the United States is not their first time coming to the country. However, for many members of the audience at Busboys and Poets on January 20, 2014, it was their first time seeing an all-Egyptian group of singers performing several songs from the musical Les Miserables–especially a performance that was done entirely in colloquial Arabic. Continue