In a speech written for the 1964 Berlin Jazz Festival, Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “much of the power of our Freedom Movement in the United States has come from this music.” King considered jazz music “triumphant” — and this belief is rooted in the widespread popularity of three men: Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Count Basie, according to author Larry Tye. Respectively known as Satchmo, Duke and the Count, the three men were, Tye writes, “symbols of American culture on par with Coca-Cola and Mickey Mouse.” He profiles the trio in his new book, “The Jazzmen.” In it, he pieces together over 250 interviews, including family members and former bandmates, to illustrate how their appeal among both Black and white audiences paved the way for the Civil Rights Movement. Tye joins us to share more.

Lesley McClurg

Listen to full interview by Lesley McClurg of Larry Tye on KQED.org

More articles

Dec 26 2024

Looking Back at the Future of Humanity Institute

by Tom Ough in Asteriskmag.com…The rise and fall of the influential, embattled Oxford research center that brought us the concept of existential risk.

Jan 16 2024

An ancient Chinese text that’s surprisingly relevant today

by Richard Heinberg in Resilience.org….I’ll leave the last words to the Old Master, this time from the Bahm translation: Whenever someone sets out to remold the...
Oct 10 2023

‘I couldn’t believe the data’: how thinking in a foreign language improves decision-making

Research shows people who speak another language are more utilitarian and flexible, less risk-averse and egotistical, and better able to cope with traumatic...
May 01 2023

The Desert of the Anthropocene: An ongoing installation from artist Ravi Agarwal

The long engagement is a part of an ongoing investigation into the current state of the nature, both as a crisis which traverses a political realm, but also a cultural...
Apr 20 2023

The surprising thing A.I. engineers will tell you if you let them

by Ezra Klein, The New York Times…This is an example of “alignment risk,” the danger that what we want the systems to do and what they will actually do could...
Apr 15 2023

This changes everything

In a 2022 survey, A.I. experts were asked, “What probability do you put on human inability to control future advanced A.I. systems causing human extinction or similarly...
Apr 15 2023

Regular old intelligence is sufficient–even lovely

Precisely twenty years ago, I published a book called “Enough” that outlined my fears about artificial intelligence and its companion technologies like advanced...
Apr 13 2023

Q&A with Noam Chomsky about the future of our world for the SXSW23 Wonder House

Q&A with Noam Chomsky about the Future of our world. We asked Noam Chomsky about the future of our world, our systems of government and power and our need to come...
Apr 13 2023

The A.I. Dilemma

The challenges of AI for human culture.

Apr 13 2023

Elon Musk and others call for pause on A.I., citing ‘profound risks to society’

More than 1,000 tech leaders, researchers and others signed an open letter urging a moratorium on the development of the most powerful artificial intelligence...