They were the US's brightest exports, and they were on a mission.
In the late 1950s, musicians Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach and Nina Simone were invited to become "jazz ambassadors" by the US State Department.
Once they accepted, they were sent out across the globe on a soft-power diplomacy mission.
That is, until one of them was unwittingly employed as a decoy in the overthrow and eventual assassination of the first elected leader of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba.
In January, Belgian documentary filmmaker Johan Grimonprez premiered his documentary Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat at Sundance Film Festival.
The documentary details the dark chapter in music history, when jazz music was used as part of a state-sponsored African coup.
"So officially [the US is] sending out those Black jazz ambassadors, but unofficially underneath, they're plotting, which is not known as something that came out until much later," Grimonprez tells ABC RN's The Music Show.
An independent Congo
The Congo was colonised by the Belgians in the 1880s, and for many years, it was officially the property of Belgian King Leopold II.
The king had little involvement in running the country in a practical sense; instead he was focused on the country's rubber production, which earned him a fortune.
During this time of brutal exploitation, the Congolese population was reduced by half.
The Belgian parliament took over in 1908, and what was known as Belgian Congo was born.
Then in 1960, after 52 years of colonial rule and a push for independence, the Mouvement National Congolais won the country's first-ever democratic parliamentary election.
Its leader, Patrice Lumumba, was appointed prime minister while Joseph Kasa-Vubu became the country's first president.
Lumumba ran on the platform of African nationalism that went against the values of Belgian colonisation that prevailed up until the Congo's independence.
He was determined the country would achieve genuine independence, that the Congolese people's living conditions would improve and they would have control over its many natural resources, including their plentiful stores of uranium.
Unfortunately, this was perceived as a threat to Western interests.
The Year of Africa
1960 was known as the Year of Africa, as the Congo was one of 17 African nations to gain independence in that year.
And at that time, growing Pan-African sentiments across the continent meant that Africa was emerging as a major voting force in the United Nations.
As Malcolm X said, when he spoke to the United Nations on September 21, 1960: "These are the poor nations, yet they carry more weight than the nations do who have all the money. Why? Because no matter how wealthy America is, she only has one vote. No matter how wealthy Russia is, she only has one vote. Whereas all the poor nations in Africa who have just emerged into independence, they have each a vote too."
Many Western countries felt that the new majority held by the Afro-Asian Bloc, a UN voting alliance formed by the wave of newly independent African and Asian countries, threatened the status quo.
"What we see is with this influx of independent states, the Global South gains the majority votes in the United Nations […] And you have that sense of hope [from the African nations]," Grimonprez explains.
"But that had to be smothered, right? While these countries become independent, there's a scramble for those resources, the neo-colonial grab that is to be set in motion."
The 'cool' weapon
By the 1950s, jazz music had become hugely popular around the world and was a source of national pride in the US.
So in 1956, the United States State Department began sending its jazz ambassadors to tour Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and central and Southern Asia and Africa.
The aim was to improve the public image of the US during the Cold War with Russia. Musicians were sent to promote American values of inclusion, freedom of expression and innovation.
This was despite the fact that many of these Black musicians were denied freedoms in the US due to ongoing segregation.
Dizzy Gillespie was the first to be deployed in this cultural diplomacy project. When asked about his role, he reportedly said: "The weapon we will use is the cool one."
By the time of Congolese independence in 1960, the jazz diplomacy program was well underway.
Musicians like Nina Simone, Dave Brubeck and Duke Ellington resulted in positive international publicity for the US.
However, when Louis Armstrong was asked to tour Africa, he made it known he was not happy to be used as a US tool of propaganda while African Americans were still unable to vote in their own country.
And while these protests against jazz diplomacy persisted, his visit to the Congo turned out to be the cover for something far more sinister.
A perfect storm
Like many new nations, the Congo was battling internal military conflict in 1960.
A small breakaway state called the Republic of Katanga mutinied and proclaimed its independence a few weeks after the Congo shed its Belgian owners.
The leader of Katanga, Moïse Tshombe, opposed Patrice Lumumba's political ideals and wanted him removed as the Congo's prime minister.
At the same time, US president Dwight D. Eisenhower was focusing his attention on post-colonial Africa because he was concerned about "potential communists" in power.
He thought Lumumba might open his country up to the Soviets.
With unrest with Katanga brewing, Lumumba requested US military support in thwarting the looming rebellion.
The Eisenhower government declined his request, so Lumumba turned to the Soviet Union for military support.
This was the final straw for Eisenhower, and he employed the CIA to quash this perceived communist threat in the Congo.
Congolese president Kasa-Vubu was urged by US and Belgian governments to dismiss Lumumba.
He did so on September 5, 1960.
Then Lumumba and Kasa-Vubu each ordered the head of the Congolese army, Colonel Mobutu, to arrest the other.
Smokescreen for treason
Despite the rising conflict with Katanga and heated political climate, Louis Armstrong landed in Léopoldville (now Kinshasa), the capital of Congo, on October 28, 1960 to perform.
Only 1,500 people were expected to show up to his concert, but more than 100,000 people formed the audience.
Such was the love for "Satchmo" [as Armstrong was nicknamed as a child] that both the Katangan uprising and the Lumumban loyalists temporarily ceased fire for the duration of his performance.
But as everyone watched Armstrong playing Mack the Knife and When it's Sleepytime Down South, the CIA-backed Colonel Mobutu had Lumumba under house arrest.
Lumumba escaped, was arrested again and escaped again.
Then at the beginning of December 1960, he was arrested for a final time by Mobutu's men.
Lumumba was flown to Katanga. Despite protests from local military, he was held and tortured.
Then, on January 17, 1961, he was assassinated by a Belgian military firing squad.
When Armstrong returned to the US after the tour, he learned of the arrests and eventual assassination.
He was furious about the role he and other musicians had unwittingly played in this coup.
Grimonprez says that Armstrong threatened to resign as a jazz ambassador or give up his US citizenship.
And when Lumumba's assassination was announced at the UN Security Council, jazz musicians Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln led a riotous protest, joined by musicians Paul Robeson and Amiri Baraka.
Armstrong continued as a jazz ambassador for a number of years after that, but when asked about his role on the world stage in 1961, he had a simple response.
"I don't have no time for politics," he said. "I just blow my horn."
