Jazz Unlimited ended on December 29, 2019 with host Dennis Owsley's retirement. The weekly radio show covered the continuum of jazz from Louis Armstrong to Lester Bowie. Each show was scripted and based on a theme to provide the broadest coverage of the music.
Host Dennis Owsley has been a jazz album collector, aficionado, and historian since 1958 and has seen most of the major artists in jazz in live performance. April 2018 marks his 35th anniversary presenting jazz on St. Louis Public Radio. He celebrated his 25th anniversary with a mayoral proclamation of a Dennis Owsley Day on January 24, 2008. He received the Millard S. Cohen Lifetime Achievement Award from St. Louis Public Radio in 2010 and was named a Jazz Hero of St. Louis by the Jazz Journalists Association. Jazz Unlimited won the Riverfront Times' Best of St. Louis Award in the "Best Jazz Show" category six times.
Nearly all the music heard on Jazz Unlimited is from Owsley's personal collection. He has an international reputation as a photographer of jazz musicians as well. >> See his photographs.
Owsley wrote an award-winning book, City of Gabriels—The Jazz History of St. Louis 1895-1973.
He produced a radio documentary in 1986 that led to that book. That documentary was produced again and expanded in 2013, the second-longest music documentary in radio history. >> Listen to all of the interviews.
Listen to the most recent two episodes of Jazz Unlimited:
View playlists from past episodes of Jazz Unlimited:
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Jazz Unlimited for Sunday. December 29, 2019 will be “The Jazz Unlimited Goodbye Show.” There is an old saying that begins with “For everything there is a…
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Jazz Unlimited for Sunday. December 22, 2019 will be “Reflections on Peace and Quiet Revisited.” These days, things are coming at us so fast we hardly…
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Jazz Unlimited host and producer Dennis Owsley will retire from St. Louis Public Radio—with his final show airing December 29—ending his 36-year legacy of…
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Jazz Unlimited for December 15, 2019 is“Christmas Songs Plus New Music” In place of the Keys and Strings hour, Jazz Unlimited presents four Christmas CD’s…
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Jazz Unlimited for December 8, 2019 will be “The Sacred in Jazz.” Jazz can be a sacred, spiritual music, as witness the works of John Coltrane, Duke…
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Jazz Unlimited for Sunday, November 24, 2019 will be “Benny Golson and Sonny Rollins Compositions Plus New Music.” The compositions of Benny Golson and…
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Jazz Unlimited for November 17, 2019 will be “The Career of Drummer Lewis Nash.” Born in 1958 in Phoenix, Arizona, Nash was a professional by 1976. He…
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Jazz Unlimited for Sunday, November 10, 2019, for “Composers Named Simon.” In addition to the well-known composer Paul Simon, there are eight composers…
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Jazz Unlimited for November 3, 2019 presents “The Music of George Duvivier.” Born in New York in 1920, Duvivier was initially a violinist and became the…
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Jazz Unlimited for October 27, 2019, will present “The Keys and Strings Hour Plus New Music.” The Keys and Strings Hour will present selections from a new…