[edutechnion]

> ... if you want to fund anything, you have to describe it as a weapon.

In 1955, the NY Times led with "United States has Secret Sonic Weapon-Jazz"

  http://thereisjazzbeforetrane.blogspot.com/2009/08/us-has-sonic-secret-weapon-jazz-nytimes.html

Why did they fund jazz like they funded abstract expressionism? Jazz was the ultimate display of democracy and integration, improvisation and the exchange of ideas.

[hansjorg]

NPR had a program about this not long ago. According to them, many of the most famous jazz musicians of the time, like Dizzy Gillespie, was sent abroad backed by CIA and the State Department.

Several of the most high profile musicians subsequently dropped out of that program after touring Europe for a while.

Supposedly the good reception they got in cosmopolitan centres like Paris put their treatment by the US public and their handlers in the government in a grim light.