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The Music of Bill Evans

Jazz Unlimited for May 21, 2017 will be  “The Music if Bill Evans.”  Pianist Bill Evans is arguably the most influential pianist in jazz since the early 1960’s.  His elegant, impressionistic pianism and compositions will be celebrated by hearing recordings of him with his own groups, with others and by other instrumentalists and vocalists playing and singing his music.  The featured musicians, in addition to Evans, will include vocalists Johnny Hartman, Tony Bennett, Janice Borla, Karrin Allyson and Judy Niemack along with instrumentalists Tadd Dameron, Joe Pass, the Miles Davis sextet, the Kronos Quartet, Oliver Nelson, the Gunther Schuller Orchestra, George Russell, the Charlie Haden/Chris Anderson Duo and a piano duet between Evans and Bob Brookmeyer.

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 May 29, 2017.

webju052117hour2.mp3
Jazz Unlimited 5/21/17 Hour 2 Archive
webju052117hour3.mp3
Jazz Unlimited 5/21/17 Hour 3 Archive

This is a video of the Bill Evans' last trio (Bill Evans (p) Marc Johnson (b) Joe LaBarbera (d)) playing "Who Can I Turn To" at a concert in Iowa in 1979.

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.