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Visions of freedom: Duke Ellington in the Soviet Union

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 September 2011

Harvey G. Cohen
Harvey G. Cohen
Affiliation:
Centre for Culture, Media and Creative Industries, King's College London, London, UK E-mail: harvey.cohen@kcl.ac.uk
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Abstract

The Duke Ellington orchestra's 1971 visit to the Soviet Union (USSR) marked their most important and publicised State Department tour, following acclaimed 1960s State tours they made to the Middle East, Near East, Asia and Africa. The Soviet tour occurred during the efforts of President Richard Nixon to establish détente at the height of the Cold War between the United States, the Soviet Union and China. Ellington found not just acceptance in Communist and satellite countries, but rabid enthusiasm that belied official Soviet government disdain or censorship of American jazz. While he was magnanimous as usual to Soviet fans and engaged in no political grandstanding, Ellington wanted his performances and presence to embody the differences between what he viewed as the freedom and democracy of his home country, and the current situation in the Soviet Union. Ellington's multi-layered vision of freedom, and the various struggles that he, the band, and State Department officials encountered during the tour provided a sharp contrast to the domineering official Soviet presence. The tour exposed the limits of what the closed society of the Soviet government could shield from their own people. Ellington made a strong impact, the strongest that any American artist had yet made in the Soviet Union.

Type
Articles
Information
Popular Music , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , October 2011 , pp. 297 - 313
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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