![]() ![]() Before him, Sidney Bechet, Benny Goodman, Earl Hines and Charles Lloyd had played in the USSR. Of course, Ellington wasn't the first jazz musican to take a walk on the Red Square. Ellington made a strong impact, the strongest that any American artist had yet made in the Soviet Union." The tour exposed the limits of what the closed society of the Soviet government could shield from their own people. 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. ![]() 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 found not just acceptance in Communist and satellite countries, but rabid enthusiasm that belied official Soviet government disdain or censorship of American jazz. "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. ![]()
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