This is John Batchelor, a colleague Ivana Stradner of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies,

celebrating jazz, American jazz music as a soft power liberator, working for much of the 20th century

very effectively against the Soviet bullies, and earlier than that, working against the Hitlerite bullies.

Here's Avonan to explain how jazz appealed to her so much.

She had to come to America, and many people think about it that way.

And the word freedom.

Here's Avana to explain.

Avonna's from Serbia, once upon a time, under the boot of the Soviet creature.

More of this tonight.

So, John, I always like to make jokes that one of the key reasons why I moved to the United States is because of American psychological operations and soft power, because I'm a huge

fan of American music and jazz music in particular. So I really very much enjoy listening,

Miles Davis, and similar artists. But the reason why my colleague Max Lesser and I,

we wrote about this, it's because there was

International on Jazz Day a couple of days ago. And one thing that we were discussing, it's about

the history of jazz, how actually jazz, with its freedom and improvisation has always been a threat to different regimes.

So during the Cold War, for example, jazz was America's very powerful non-nuclear weapon.

It was music, not bullets, you know, that contributed to the fall of Berlin War.

And the United States used jazz music to offer a glimpse of freedom, you know, to people living under repressive regimes.

So I'll just give you a very concrete idea, like American jazz drew on the attention of millions of people globally.

It symbolized American democracy, freedom, and individualism.

It was truly the power of art.

And the Soviet Union conducted an international ballet performance, even via Bolshoi theater and opera shows.

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