
Jazz Unlimited ended on December 29, 2019 with host Dennis Owsley's retirement. The weekly radio show covered the continuum of jazz from Louis Armstrong to Lester Bowie. Each show was scripted and based on a theme to provide the broadest coverage of the music.
Host Dennis Owsley has been a jazz album collector, aficionado, and historian since 1958 and has seen most of the major artists in jazz in live performance. April 2018 marks his 35th anniversary presenting jazz on St. Louis Public Radio. He celebrated his 25th anniversary with a mayoral proclamation of a Dennis Owsley Day on January 24, 2008. He received the Millard S. Cohen Lifetime Achievement Award from St. Louis Public Radio in 2010 and was named a Jazz Hero of St. Louis by the Jazz Journalists Association. Jazz Unlimited won the Riverfront Times' Best of St. Louis Award in the "Best Jazz Show" category six times.
Nearly all the music heard on Jazz Unlimited is from Owsley's personal collection. He has an international reputation as a photographer of jazz musicians as well. >> See his photographs.
Owsley wrote an award-winning book, City of Gabriels—The Jazz History of St. Louis 1895-1973.
He produced a radio documentary in 1986 that led to that book. That documentary was produced again and expanded in 2013, the second-longest music documentary in radio history. >> Listen to all of the interviews.
Listen to the most recent two episodes of Jazz Unlimited:
View playlists from past episodes of Jazz Unlimited:
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Jazz Unlimited for April 8, 2018 will be “Grammy Winners in My Collection-Part 2.” In it’s early days, the jazz Grammy Awards were not awarded for great…
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Jazz Unlimited for April 1, 2018 will be “Grammy Winners in My Collection-Part 1.” In it’s early days, the jazz Grammy Awards were not awarded for great…
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Jazz Unlimited for March 25, 2018 will be “The Keys and Strings Hour Plus New Music.” Jazz Unlimited is still not finished with the music of Bill Evans,…
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Jazz Unlimited for March 18, 2018 is “The Music of Bill Evans.” Writer Gene Lees described the life of pianist Bill Evans’ as a long slow suicide. Evans’…
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Jazz Unlimited for March 11, 2018 is “Music I Grew Up With.” I began following jazz in the late 1950’s and during this time started my collection, which…
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Jazz Unlimited for March 4, 2018 will be “The Career of Gene Harris.” Pianist Gene Harris had two careers. The first was from 1966 to 1976 with “The Three…
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Jazz Unlimited for February 25, 2018 will be “The Keys and Strings Hour (Oscar) Plus New Music.” The “Keys and Strings Hour will present performances by…
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Jazz Unlimited for Sunday, February 18, 2018 will be “The Career of Horace Parlan.” Pianist Horace Parlan was born in Pittsburgh in 1931. After working in…
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Jazz Unlimited for February 11, 2017 will be “The Career of Cecil McBee.” Bassist extraordinaire Cecil McBee has been a force in jazz for 58 years. He has…
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Please join me tonight on Jazz Unlimited from nine p.m. to midnight on St. Louis Public Radio, 90.7 KWMU for “The Career of Steve Swallow.” Electric…