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The Career Of Sir Roland Hanna

Jazz Unlimited for November 8, 2015 is “The Career of Sir Roland Hanna.”  Born in Detroit in 1932, Sir Roland Hanna studied at the Eastman School of Music and graduated from Julliard in 1960.  He was one of the most flexible of all the modern jazz pianists in that he was equally at home in big bands and small groups.  Hanna spent much of his career anchoring the Benny Goodman and Thad Jones/Mel Lewis big bands.  In 1970, he was named an honorary knight of Liberia.  We will hear him with Kenny Burrell, Richard Davis, Charles Mingus, Richard Davis, James Newton, Clark Terry, George Mraz, Jimmy Knepper, Ruth Brown, Joe Williams, the Jimmy Heath Little Man Big Band and the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra.

The Slide Show has photographs of some of the musicians heard on this show.

The Archive of this show will be available until the morning of November 16, 2015

Here is a video of the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra in 1969 playing Jerome Richardson's "The Groove Merchant" with Jerry Dodgion (as,fl) Jerome Richardson (as, sop) Eddie Daniels, Joe Henderson (ts) Pepper Adams (bar) Sir Roland Hanna (p) Richard Davis (b)

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.