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The Career Of Phil Woods

Jazz Unlimited for Sunday, September 2, 2018 will be “The Career of Phil Woods.”  Alto saxophonist Phil Woods’s 61-year performing career included 30 wins as best alto saxophone in the Down Beat Readers Polls.  He led his own quintet from 1972 to 2015 and played with the big bands of Dizzy Gillespie, Quincy Jones, Oliver Nelson, Thelonious Monk and Jay McShann.  He and Benny Carter were close friends.  In addition to those already mention, Woods will be heard with Gary Burton & Joe Morello, Gene Quill, Bill Mays, George Wallington, Jim McNeely, his European Rhythm Machine, the John Carisi Orchestra, and the Prestige All-Stars.

The Slide Show contains my photos of some of the musicians heard on this show.

The Archive of this show will be available until the morning of September 10, 2018.

Here is a version of "I'll Remember April" on March 20, 2015 with Phil Woods (as) and Brian Lynch (tp) in Milwaukee.  Note the oxygen concentrator next to Phil as he plays.  He died six months later.

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.