Kansas Citians

By Dennis Owsley

Published October 8, 2016 at 11:41 AM CDT

Jazz Unlimited for October 9 will be preempted in the first hour by the Presidential debate and will resume at 10 pm for “Kansas Citians.” Not only was it an important the center of a great period in jazz, but also Kansas City and its environs were and remain a nurturing place for the careers of many jazz musicians, including Count Basie, Charlie Parker, Lester Young, Pat Metheny, Karrin Allyson and others. Please note that the first hour of this show will be pre-empted by the Presidential debate. You can catch the first hour of the show by going the Archive starting on Monday morning and running for the next week.

There are no photographs this week.

The Archive of this show will be available until the morning of September 17, 2016.

Here is a video of the Count Basie band playing "Dance of the Gremlins" and "Swingin' the Blues." Soloists are Harry "Sweets" Edison (tp) Basie (p) and Don Byas (ts). Note that drummer Jo Jones has hair. The year was 1941.

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Dennis Owsley

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.

See stories by Dennis Owsley