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Compositions Associated With Miles Davis

Jazz Unlimited for May 8, 2016 will be  “Compositions Associated with Miles Davis.”  Trumpeter Miles Davis was one of the most important and innovative figures in jazz from 1947 until his death in 1991.  But, throughout his career and up until today, the provenance of some of the compositions he claimed as his have been in dispute.  We will hear his compositions along with those that are in dispute.  They will be played by Miles himself, Charlie Parker, Ray Bryant, J.J. Johnson, Kurt Elling, Victor Feldman, Art Farmer, Jim Hall, the Ray Brown Trio, Mark Murphy, Stan Getz, the Latin Side of Miles Davis Group, David Murray, Hampton Hawes, Cassandra Wilson, Joe Henderson, the Gil Evans Orchestra, David Liebman, our own World Saxophone Quartet and Anthony Braxton.

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

The Archive of this show will be available until the morning of May 26, 2016.

This video of Miles Davis playing at a 1986 Amnesty International Concert that also features Carlos Santana and Robben Ford (g) Bob Berg (ts) and Robert Irving III (keys).

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.