CAI's John Basile presents this look at the late President Jimmy Carter and his appreciation for America's music; jazz.
Carter spoke eloquently about jazz and put his words into action in 1978, when he hosted the White House Jazz Festival, which featured the top artists in jazz of the day.
Carter's wit and love of the music and the people who play it came through on that day. And, he even joined in singing a jazz classic.
As a young man, Carter listened to jazz on records and the radio, and as a naval officer in the early 1940s, made trips to New York to hear the top jazz musicians in person.
While Richard Nixon hosted Duke Ellington at the White House a few years before Carter hosted the jazz festival there, it was Carter who presented the entire spectrum of jazz, from New Orleans style to the avant-garde.
