http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/keyword/jazz-ambassadors Inquiries Journal provides undergraduate and graduate students around the world a platform for the wide dissemination of academic work over a range of core disciplines. en-us Sun, 05 Apr 2026 13:51:47 -0400 Sun, 05 Apr 2026 13:51:47 -0400 http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1901/the-jazz-ambassadors-intersections-of-american-foreign-power-and-black-artistry-in-duke-ellingtons-far-east-suite By Rebecca E. Coyne - Scholarly discussions of Ellington’s Far East Suite, a composition inspired by his travels to India and the Middle East, have tended to interpret its impressionistic depictions of the “exotic” either as evidence of a superior cultural sensitivity or as the straightforward continuation of a white Orientalist musical tradition. I propose a third view based on the overlapping and racialized power dynamics of jazz ambassadorship itself: Ellington uses conventional jazz tropes rather than absorbing foreign musical influences in the Far East Suite in order to assert the independent... Tue, 25 May 2021 09:12 EDT http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1901/the-jazz-ambassadors-intersections-of-american-foreign-power-and-black-artistry-in-duke-ellingtons-far-east-suite