[Dixielandjazz] Sing Song Diplomacy -- in Ragtime

[Dick Baker]

Norm Vickers passed on the Washington Post article that described previous 
State Dept-sponsored musical trips to foreign, especially hostile, 
lands.  But those unaware louts missed the most important of all, which 
came in 1978 when the State Department sent me and, in supporting roles, 
Gunther Schuller and the New England Conservatory Ragtime Orchestra, on a 
six-city tour of the Soviet Union.  We went to Donetsk (Garden Spot of the 
Ukraine), Odessa, Tbilisi, Tashkent, Novosibirsk, and Moscow.  Alas, I 
don't know of an on-line source to direct you to for details; I wrote it up 
for Mississippi Rag, but it doesn't appear that they've digitized stuff 
that old for their web site.


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      Dick Baker
  djml at dickbaker.org