
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 January 28, 2018 will be “The Keys and Strings Hour + New Music.” The “Keys and Strings Hour” will visit the Maybeck Recital Hall for…
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Jazz Unlimited Sunday for Sunday, January 21, 2018 will be “The Jones Brothers.” Raised in Pontiac Michigan, pianist Hank Jones and his brothers,…
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Jazz Unlimited for Sunday January 14, 2018 will be “Musicians Named Williams.” Williams is the third most common surname in this country. Jazz musicians…
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Jazz Unlimited for Sunday, January 7, 2018 will be “The Bebop Hot House.” The bebop style, which flowered in the hot house of the mid 1940’s burst on the…
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Jazz Unlimited for December 31, 2017 is “Party Time.” New Year’s eve is always a time of parties celebrating the end of the year and the coming of the New…
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Jazz Unlimited for Christmas Eve, 2017 will be “The Winter Holiday Show.” A number of traditions are celebrated each December in this country. All of them…
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Jazz Unlimited for December 17, 2017 will be “The Keys and Strings Hour (Ornette Coleman Compositions) + New Music.” Saxophonist, composer Ornette Coleman…
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Jazz Unlimited for December 10, 2017 will be “The Career of Don Pullen.” Pianist/organist Don Pullen was born in Roanoke, Virginia on Christmas Day, 1941.…
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Jazz Unlimited for Sunday, December 4 is "The Career of Max Roach." One of the founders of bebop drumming, Max Roach’s 69 year performance career included…
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Jazz Unlimited FOR Sunday, November 26, 2017 will be “The Keys and Strings Hour (Jim Hall) Plus New Music.” I have always been fascinated by the sound and…