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The Norman Granz Labels-Part 1

Jazz Unlimited for Sunday, July 19 will be “The Norman Granz Labels-Part 1.”  During his career, Norman Granz founded the Clef, Norgran, Down Home, Verve and Pablo record labels.  These labels recorded mainstream and traditional jazz artists including Oscar Peterson, Ben Webster, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Jazz at the Philharmonic, Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, Kenny Barron, Charlie Parker, Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra, Clark Terry and others from 1944 until today.

The Slide Show contains my photographs of some of the artists heard on tonight's show.

Here is Ella Fitzgerald with Count Basie at Montreux in 1978 doing "Basella" with solos by Eric Dixon (ts) and Mitchell "Booty" Wood (tb)

Dennis Owsley has broadcast a weekly jazz show for St. Louis Public Radio since April 1983. He holds a Ph.D. in organic chemistry and is a retired Monsanto Senior Science Fellow and college teacher. His show, Jazz Unlimited, airs every Sunday from 9:00 p.m. to midnight. The show has the largest jazz audience in St. Louis and was named Best Jazz Radio Show in St. Louis for the years 2005-2007 and 2009 by the Riverfront Times. In celebration of his 25 years on the air, January 24, 2008 was proclaimed Dennis Owsley Day" in the City of St. Louis. He is the 2010 winner of the St. Louis Public Radio Millard S. Cohen Lifetime Achievement Award. Dennis is also a noted photographer, and his exhibit, In the Moment: Photographs of Jazz Musicians, ran from September 23, 2005 to January 21, 2006 at the Sheldon Art Gallery. He is a lifetime student of jazz history and teaches short courses on the subject. Dennis is the author of the award-winning book City of Gabriels: The History of Jazz in St. Louis 1985-1973, published in 2006.