This research moves from the experience of Music Making History Research Unit, of Sapienza University of Rome in occasion of the upcoming Affiliation with the GRAMMY Museum (June 2017). It focuses on two separate perspectives. One anchored to the current debate among historians about music and international relations. Starting from the political context of the Cold War - with the Eisenhower's People to People programme - blues, jazz, soul and rock and roll became strategic instrument of US public diplomacy. African-American music was used by the US Department of State like a sort of "sonic weapon" to combat the perception of the United States as a racist society, as well as an "influential unofficial ambassador" of "peace, stability and goodwill". Recent research emphasizes how, paradoxically, the military use of the sound like a cultural weapon, let African-American music outside US to overcome filters and censorship of the local political and cultural institutions (governments, political parties, record industries).
The second perspective is interdisciplinary and focuses on the Grammy Museum as a non-profit organization created in Los Angeles USA, in 2008 and recently expanding with cultural program inside and outside the United States: starting from the upcoming Affiliation with Sapienza University of Rome. In fact, the GRAMMY Museum's Mission is to highlight the United States music's rich cultural and record production history, as well as to explore the enduring legacies of the history of the GRAMMY Awards. Trough an interdisciplinary approach this research aims, on this point of view, to investigate the GRAMMY Museum like an innovative Museum with a significant role for the preserving of the cultural heritage of sound history in the XX century. Moreover, under the Obama White House Administration, the GRAMMY Museum - co-producing education programs with the White House - played an institutional role like an American "sound ambassador" inside and outside US.
This research moves from the experience of Music Making History Research Unit, of Sapienza University of Rome in occasion of the upcoming Affiliation with the GRAMMY Museum (June 19, 2017). It represents a pioneering contribution in the Contemporary History field using African-American music as an agent that directly affects European and Mediterranean history accelerating social, political, economic processes and transformations. The research program aims to challenge the studying of political and social processes using "sound" as a historical source. In the Jazz Scene the historian Eric J. Hobsbawm recognizes Jazz music as a cultural phenomenon which plays an essential role for the understanding of the 20th century. Not surprisingly, WWI and WWII can be identified as crucial events in the global diffusion of jazz music. Starting from the post WWI crisis, when Jazz music played in Europe a very complex role. From this perspective, this project has its main focus on the social and political impact of Rock and Roll music in the European and Mediterranean landscape in the political context of the Cold war era, when African-American music was commissioned by the US Department of State as a propaganda instrument to contrast abroad the perception of the United States as a racist society. But, of course, Rock and roll spread indeed the seeds of the B-side of America, "the dark side" of the American way of life, as well as the first seeds of the civil rights. This research aims to provide an understanding of the socio-political impact of the Cold War, and all the complexity of the arrival of the African-American culture in Post¿World War II Europe, along with Rock and Roll music.
Introducing the partnership with the Grammy Museum, this project aims also to introduce the crucial role of the Grammy Museum as a sort of Music Ambassador. Primarily, evoking the ancient meaning of the term Museum, i.e. the Greek term inspired to the Muse's mother Mnemosyne. A Museum which is not steadily tied to the past, but which uses the past' sounds and images in a dynamic way to create the future. In this vision the Grammy Museum, paying tribute to music's rich cultural history, turns to be an agent that may directly affects European and Mediterranean history, contributing to social, political, economic processes and transformations.