How Louis Armstrong shaped the sound of Ghana | Hacker News Reader

How Louis Armstrong shaped the sound of Ghana

atlasobscura.com

48 pointsprmph8 comments

In the same way that West African music and African American music are connected, in the Southern Hemisphere a similar dynamic of cross-pollination exists between Angolan and Brazilian music:

1. Forced migration from Angola to Brazil, caused by slavery. As a result new genres of Brazilian Popular Music are influenced by traditional Angolan music

2. Brazilian Music makes its way back into Angola, new Angolan styles are influenced by Samba and other Brazilian genres.

As an aside: don't miss out on this stuff. In my experience while most people in the English-speaking world are familiar with Bossa Nova, they rarely check out other Brazilian styles like Samba, Choro etc. and Angolan music like Kizomba and Semba. These are very rich musical traditions and if you have a look you will not be disappointed.

There's actually a documentary about the CIA's unknowing use of jazzs musicians to infiltrate African countries:

Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundtrack_to_a_Coup_d'Etat

Louis Armstrong amung them...

The impacts of this on today’s music is unreal.

WWOZ is the local station and its djs are musical historians.

Enjoy https://www.wwoz.org/listen/player/

The trip was arranged by famed American broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow, who, according to the 2016 Georgetown University exhibit “Jazz Ambassador Louis Armstrong, Ghana 1956,” “was eager to see what impact the city’s cultural life might have on a performer like Louis Armstrong,” ...

I'd love to know more about Accra's cultural life at the time, that Murrow not only wanted to bring Armstrong but thought it would have such an impact on the musician.

It's fascinating to me. My father was living in Accra at this time. He was a life-long Louis Armstrong fan. I have to assume he was there for this? He never mentioned it.

OK, turns out he was there. He attended with the Prime Minister. I didn't even know...

Louis Armstrong was sent to Ghana by the CIA.

Came here to say this. The CIA's jazz emissaries eventual revolted. This came up on today's Thom Hartmann program.

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