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The Career Of Illinois Jacquet

Jazz Unlimited for August 18, 2019, presents “The Career of Illinois Jacquet.”  Born in the New Orleans area but raised in Houston, Illinois Jacquet was one of the first honking and screeching tenor sax players.  He had a long career as a galvanizing soloist starting with his famous solo on “Flying Home” as a member of the Lionel Hampton band.  In addition to Hamp, Jacquet will be heard with Count Basie, Lester Young, Johnny Hartman, Jazz at the Philharmonic, the Newport Jazz Festival All-Stars, the Lincoln Center Jazz Band, a Norman Granz Jam Session, his own big bands and small groups as well as having some of his compositions played by Arnett Cobb & Red Garland, Ella Fitzgerald, Tommy Flanagan & Hank Jones, Leo Parker and Ray Brown.

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

This is a video of the llinois Jacquet Big Band Live in Burghausen, Germany, 1996, featuring Joey  Cavaseno (as) Brian Sledge (tp), Mike Grey (tb), Rodney Lancaster, (tb), Jon Mark McGowan (tpt) Eli Yamin (p).

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.