Disney Announces The Soul of Jazz An American Adventure Exhibit at EPCOT

Walt Disney World has announced The Soul of Jazz: An American Adventure as a brand new exhibit. The company is using Soul as a jumping off point to explore the larger impact of the American contributions of Jazz music. African American people had significant output during the formation of the genre and Black History Month seems like the perfect time to announce this kind of exhibit. As viewers were treated to Joe’s adventure through the afterlife in Soul, they clearly saw how much the music affected his life and the experiences of his family. Disney actually got Jon Batiste to talk about the upcoming exhibit and what it entailed on their YouTube page. Carmen Smith of Walt Disney Imagineering also explained the link between the film and the music of Jazz pioneers on Disney Parks Blog.

“Joe Gardner – the musician, mentor and teacher from Disney and Pixar’s new film “Soul,” streaming on Disney+ – shares the rich and surprising history of jazz by taking you on a musical tour of several influential American cities,” Smith explained. “You’ll also discover artifacts from legendary jazz musicians, including Louis Armstrong. And soon you’ll be able to use the Play Disney Parks mobile app to interact with the exhibit and test your knowledge of jazz.”

“Our team at Walt Disney Imagineering is thrilled to bring the compelling story of jazz to EPCOT, and we were honored to work with jazz experts and institutions across the country to explore the rich history and influence of this ever-evolving genre of music,” she continued. “We hope you are as inspired by what we discovered as our Imagineers were bringing this exhibit to life.”

The filmmakers have made no secret of their love for the music of the film. Story artist Michael Yates spoke to Comicbook.com about approaching Joe’s story with the kind of honesty necessary.

“I think it was a number of things. I think we were really aware of that because, like with all of our films, we try to do as much research as possible. And I think the first thing was hiring Kemp Powers to be the writer, like he mentioned in his talk, a lot of Joe’s life is similar to his own life,” Yates recalled. “We also had an internal culture trust at the studio of African Americans that work together and we will come together and review different aspects of it and pitch different ideas for the character just to make it as authentic. And I guess even just like a wider berth, like it’s not just one person’s experience, it’s trying to relate as many African Americans as possible.”

Will you be checking out the exhibit at EPCOT? Let us know in the comments!