In the 1970s, a survey in Russia found that the most well-known American in the country was Richard Nixon. Placing second on that list was Willis Conover, a man unknown to many Americans, but loved by millions around the globe as the jazz disc jockey for Voice of America. This was at a time when the world was flirting with self-annihilation, but even then, leaders in government realized that music and art can be a powerful transformative and persuasive force.

Jam Session: America’s Jazz Ambassadors Embrace the World, a photography exhibition now on display at the Meridian International Center‘s Cafritz Gelleries, captures this sentiment by showing how artists can relate to people of all stripes at the most basic level. The over 90 images document international tours from the 1950s to the 1970s, in which legends of jazz traveled the globe in order to expose foreign peoples to the great American art form. Among the most well-represented subjects are big band leaders Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, the first true jazz ambassador, piano legend Dave Brubeck, and of course, Satchmo himself, Louis Armstrong.