
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 November 4, 2018 will be “Remembering Hamiet Bluiett.” Born in St. Louis but raised in Brooklyn, Illinois, Hamiet Bluiett, one of the…
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Jazz Unlimited for October 28, 2018 will be “The Keys and Strings Hour Plus New Music.” Duke Ellington’s music retains a strong pull on jazz. The “Keys…
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Jazz Unlimited for Sunday, October 21, 2018 will present “The Career of Kenny Barron.” Born in Philadelphia in 1943, this jazz piano master began his…
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Jazz Unlimited for September 14, 2018 will be “The Career of Ben Webster.” Ben Webster was considered to be one of the three major tenor sax players of…
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Jazz Unlimited for October 7, 2018 will be “Remembering Randy Weston.” Pianist Randy Weston, famous for blending African rhythms and sensibility in his…
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Jazz Unlimited for September 30, 2018 will be “The Keys and Strings Hour Plus New Music.” The Keys and Strings Hour or the Quieter Side of Jazz will…
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Jazz Unlimited for September 23, 2018 will be “Jazz Giants For September and October.” Jazz Giants are musicians who influence the course of jazz or who…
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Jazz Unlimited for September 16, 2018 will be “The Career of Buddy Rich.” At age eight, Buddy Rich was in vaudeville and was known as “Traps, the Drum…
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Jazz Unlimited for September 9, 2018 will be “The Music of Lee Morgan.” Trumpeter Lee Morgan hit the big time in 1956 at age 18 with the Dizzy Gillespie…
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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…