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By the middle of the 20th century, the United States in the context of the Cold War with

the Soviet Union was sending jazz bands abroad as a symbol and an emblem of the United States itself,

which is quite a terabyte from its origins. And in fact, you have these philosophers nowadays

who say that the very nature of this music, which involves oftentimes improvisation,

is an example of how a democratic society should function.

You're listening to upstream, upstream, upstream, upstream. A podcast of documentaries and

conversations that invites you to unlearn everything you thought you knew about economics.

I'm Robert Raymond. And I'm Dela Duncan. The music we know today as jazz has deep and contested

roots, but likely arose in New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The music is based on the musical traditions of Africans newly freed from slavery,

and particularly by the tradition of the blues, an art form known for expressing the suffering

and hardship of Jim Crow, America. In his book, Jazz and Justice, racism and the political

...