Jazz in the post-war years: In the early 1940s, bebop-style performers began to shift jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging "musician's music." The most influential bebop musicians included saxophonist Charlie Parker, pianists Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie and Clifford Brown, and drummer Max Roach. Divorcing itself from dance music, bebop established itself more as an art form, thus lessening its potential popular and commercial appeal. Composer Gunther Schuller wrote, "In 1943 I heard the great Earl Hines band which had Bird in it and all those other great musicians. They were playing all the flatted
The Rhythm Road: American Music Abroad and the Jazz Ambassadors program during the Cold War era, when Jazz legends such as Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong and Dave Brubeck went on global tours on behalf of the State Department. In addition to performing for foreign audiences, musicians who participate in this program lead workshops and classes to educate locals in their instrument. The Rhythm Road: American Music Abroad The Rhythm Road: American Music Abroad is a $1.5 million per annum cultural exchange program for musicians sponsored in part by the United States State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. This program is in partnership with Jazz