Curated by North Star Sounds co-host Jon Greenbaum
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It’s been a month since my wife and I sat down to watch Soundtrack to a Coup D’Etat. The emotional impact of the movie is still palpable.
The documentary focuses on the 1961 assassination of Patrice Lumumba, prime minister of the newly liberated Congo (formerly Belgian Congo). During the height of the cold war the US State Department (and CIA front organizations) used jazz artists Max Roach, Dizzy Gillespie, Nina Simone and Louis Armstrong to help project “soft power” in order to win hearts and minds in Africa.
The documentary conveys how the balance of power was tipping against United States global dominance, as non-aligned countries like Ghana, Yugoslavia, United Arab Republic, Indonesia and India challenge the world power calculus. In addition, waves of African national liberation struggles prevailed as European colonial powers retreated and, critically, new African leaders and diplomats took their seats at the UN. In one powerful scene Malcolm X is shown planning Pan-African power with Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah. And we watch, with increasing anxiety, how the United States, European leaders and Dag Hammarskjold, the secretary general of the UN, conspire together to take down the idealistic and thoroughly incorruptible Lumumba. All against a compelling mid century jazz soundtrack featuring Coltrane, Monk, Blakey and the aforementioned jazz ambassadors.
In gripping archival footage of American jazz artists and African leaders as well as the Belgian King Baudouin, a mendacious Allen Dulles, and cold-blooded Rhodesian mercenaries, the documentary spins a feverish multi-sensory assault. Additional context is provided by excerpts from memoirs by national liberation and women’s rights organizer Andrée Blouin, Congolese writer In Koli Jean Bofane, and Irish diplomat Conor Cruise O’Brien, as well as literal footnotes of telegrams and declassified information. The chronology of events is interspersed with footage of Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach performing the We Insist! Freedom Now Suite, to powerful effect. We watch, helpless, as armed forces tighten their grip around Lumumba.
This was the geopolitical spy-riddled reality that laid the foundation for thrillers written by folks like John le Carré. And the truth of this slice of history hits harder than any work of fiction.
Surprisingly, for those of us who grew up immersed in the American view of the failures of Soviet communism, Nikita Khrushchev comes across as a savvy and compelling counterweight to American determination to control access to African and other third world resources.
Although the jazz artists were manipulated by the US foreign policy apparatus, they weren’t helpless victims. Armstrong had been reluctant to tour Africa, not wanting to be used as a diplomatic pawn in the midst of American Jim Crow intransigence. The documentary also shows Dizzy telling Edward R. Murrow that he’s not going overseas to whitewash segregation. When Armstrong got back to the US and learned of the Lumumba assassination he was furious and threatened to resign as a jazz ambassador and give up his US citizenship. In one riveting scene Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach are seen leading a loud protest at the UN Security Council meeting where they are manhandled and forcibly removed.
Soundtrack to a Coup D’Etat is available on a handful of streaming services for $4. But be prepared to be appalled, disillusioned and enraged.