On April 29 the US President, Barack Obama opened the doors of the White House to a collection of artists from around the represantes world of jazz and other genres to celebrate International Jazz Day held since 2012 all the 30th of April among which the presence of Aretha Franklin, Sting and innovative genre Mr. Herbie Hancock.
Interventions night the most outstanding of the evening were the host President Obama stating "It certainly has a big footprint in the DNA of music globally. I was spreading like wildfire across the world from Africa to Asia "highlighting the ability of Jazz to integrate different as dissimilar musical styles from around the world," "Welcome to the Blues House (House of Blues)", referring to an anecdote linked to the campaign for the presidency of the jazz musician Dizzy Gillespie and he said "Today the Jazz returns home as in previous years since its declaration in 2012 the International Jazz Day was celebrated in cities like Istanbul and Paris. In his introduction the main presenter Morgan Freeman said "today the Jazz again a great jamming session". He also interceded Director General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, who highlighted the "Jazz is about freedom" in a day created to "increase interest in the virtues of jazz as an educational tool and a force for peace, unity, dialogue and improving cooperation between peoples "as defined by the United Nations.
Among these virtues it awarded the Jazz which highlighted in the speeches was the integration in times where increasingly different forms of discrimination so Bokova stressed "the Jazz and human rights go hand in hand so those spread seeking fragmenting humanity always point in response to culture we see, hear and we share even more culture, heritage and ideas. "
At the White House scenarios they are arranged to receive the interpretations of artists like Chick Korea, Jamie Cullum, Chucho Valdez, Paquito D'Rivera, Diana Krall, Esperanza Spalding, John Mclaughlin, Marcus Miller, Joey Alexander and Herbie Hancock whose presentation invited the great Aretha Franklin to sing a fragment of Purple Rain honoring the recently deceased Prince.
Herbie Hancock added before the grand finale, "Tonight we proved that no matter where we live, what language we speak we worship or the color of our skin, jazz knows no borders". At the close of the evening all the great stars of the night came together to play a beautiful arrangement in Jazz classic John Lennon, Imagine.
