American jazz in Dushanbe

This afternoon we went to hear the Ari Roland Quartet, a New York based jazz group, performing at the Ismaili Center in Dushanbe.

They were here as Arts Envoys , a wonderful program of the U.S. State Department, which "shares the best of the U.S. arts community with the world to foster cross-cultural understanding and collaboration and to demonstrate shared values and aspirations."

This young man in front of us recorded the quartet doing Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World," a song that he obviously knew and loved.

For the children in the audience...

...the quartet did a bit from the Pink Panther theme and a jazz version of "May there always be sunshine," both of them getting appreciative gasps from the audience.

The quartet did some other jazz and blues songs, but they connected most with the audience when they did jazz versions of three Tajik songs.

People really got out their phones to record those!