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The Steeplechase, Storyville and Challenge Record Labels-Part 2

Jazz Unlimited for May 7, 2017 will be “The Steeplechase, Storyville and Challenge Record Labels-Part 2.” Theses Danish labels provided a haven for American jazz musicians who were not involved in jazz-rock, avant-garde or the neo-classicism of the 1970’s through the early 1990’s. We will hear music of the King Oliver Creole Jazz Band on a great sounding re-issue, John Abercrombie, the Ernie Wilkins Almost Big Band, Teddy Edwards, Archie Shepp & Horace Parlan, Joe Locke, Red Rodney, Louis Smith, the Dutch Jazz Orchestra, Dexter Gordon, Zoot Sims, Onaje Allen Gumbs, Clark Terry, Junior Cook, Archie Shepp & Niels-Henning Ørsted Pederson, Lee Konitz & Hal Galper, George Cables, Art Pepper and Jim Hall.

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

This is a video of the Ernie Wilkins Almost Big Band playing Randy Weston's "Hi-Fly" at the 1983 Montreux 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.