The Real Ambassadors is a jazz musical developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s by Dave and Iola Brubeck, in collaboration with Louis Armstrong and his band.

It addressed the Civil Rights Movement, the music business, America's place in the world during the Cold War, the nature of God, and a number of other themes.

The Brubecks and Armstrong (among many other musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, and Duke Ellington) were part of a campaign by the State Department to spread American culture and music around the world during the Cold War, especially into countries whose allegiances were not well defined or that were perceived as being at risk of aligning with the Soviet Union.

[3] Among the events referenced, directly or indirectly, were the 1956 student riots in Greece in which stones were thrown at the US Embassy, which dissipated following performances by Dizzy Gillespie; Louis Armstrong's 1956 visit to Ghana as the guest of Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah; and Armstrong's dispute with the Eisenhower Administration and President Eisenhower personally over the handling of the 1957 Central High School Crisis in Little Rock, Arkansas.

[1] Forty years later, in 2002, The Real Ambassadors returned to the Monterey Jazz Festival, this time featuring the Dave Brubeck Quartet, Lizz Wright, Roy Hargrove, and Christian McBride.

[7] The first revival of the musical was presented at the 2013 Detroit Jazz Festival with Bill Meyer using the same format of a concert performance with narrator as the Brubecks had staged at Monterey.

"[11] After years of demeaning roles in his public performances, the collaboration in The Real Ambassadors offered Armstrong material that was closer to his own sensibility and outlook.

Later, at the live performance of "The Real Ambassadors" with Armstrong at the 1962 Monterey Jazz Festival, Lambert, Hendricks, and Bavan put sackcloths and hoods over their heads (which they lifted before singing) just before beginning "They Say I Look Like God".