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Nordic Jazz in Washington Builds Cultural Bridges

Natalie Liu

   WASHINGTON - The popular image of ambassadors as stuffy dignitaries in
   striped pants is giving way in Washington to a more upbeat vision, if
   the city's Scandinavian envoys have anything to say about it.

   At a cheery event a little earlier this summer, jazz artists from
   Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Finland gathered in the garden of
   the Danish ambassador's residence to participate in what is becoming
   one of the city's summer rituals, the annual Nordic Jazz Festival, now
   in its 13th year.

   "For Denmark, the relationship with American jazz goes all the way back
   to the early 1960s, when some of the world's most iconic jazz artists
   found refuge in Denmark," said Lone D. Wisborg, ambassador of Denmark
   to the United States.

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