In the 1950s during the Cold War, the US State Department made a conscious choice to use jazz as a "cultural weapon" by dispatching musicians around the globe to burnish America's image abroad. Louis Armstrong, one of several musicians who participated in the Jazz Ambassadors program, played with the late clarinetist Joe Muranyi in the final version of the Louis Armstrong All-Stars in Tunisia in 1967.

In this excerpt from a 2009 Jazz at Lincoln Center Jazz Talk, Joe Muranyi joins Dr. Penny Von Eschen, author of "Satchmo Blows Up The World: Jazz Musicians Play The Cold War," and moderator Dr. Lewis Porter in a discussion of jazz and cultural diplomacy.