News - Music Alive! - Teach with Today's Music

Jazz Royalty. Like Duke Ellington & Benny Goodman Featured In San Francisco Historic Exhibit

Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington, and Benny Goodman photographs are part of a new exhibit at the Jazz Heritage Center in San Francisco which explores various historic exchange programs operated by the U.S. Department of State during the fifties, sixties, and seventies.

On May 17, the Center will unveil the exhibit , called Jam Session: America's Jazz Ambassadors Embrace the World. organized by the Meridian International Center. It was a time when the U.S. government used American jazz musicians as front-line cultural diplomats instead of traditional symphony orchestras and ballet companies.

To kick off the exhibit, the Jazz Heritage Center invites the public to a special celebration on Sunday, May 17, from 3 pm to 5 pm, with a live musical performance by the Dave Brubeck Institute Jazz Quintet from the University of Pacific in Stockton, to support the images and various documents.

Jam Session is part of an international tour which has premiered at Washington, D.C.'s Meridian International Center, and most recently, the legendary Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City. The Jazz Heritage Center is the exhibit's only West Coast showing, and will run from May 17, 2009 to June 25, 2009, daily from Noon to 10 pm. Jam Session is a free exhibit brought to the San Francisco community through the generosity of the Koret Foundation and Friends of the Jazz Heritage Center.

For more information, go to jazzheritagecenter.org.

Music Alive! Music Education for Today's Generation

Jazz Royalty. Like Duke Ellington & Benny Goodman Featured In San Francisco Historic Exhibit