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The Career Of Gene Harris

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 Sounds,” which was followed by semi-retirement in Boise, Idaho.  Ray Brown rediscovered him in 1983.  His joyous career continued until his heath in 2000.   We will hear him with “The Three Sounds,” Anita O’Day, Stanley Turrentine, Lou Donaldson and James Clay from his first career and Scott Hamilton, his own quartet, the 20th Jazz Festival All-Stars, Milt Jackson, the Ray Brown Trio, Ernestine Anderson, his “Alley Cats” group, the Ray Brown quintet and two all-star Big Bands from his second career.

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

The Archive of this show will be available until the morning of March 12, 2018.

This is a 1989 version of "Summertime" with Gene Harris (p) Ray Brown (b) and Jeff Hamilton (d) at the concord Jazz Festival.

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.