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The Compositions Of Irving Berlin

Jazz Unlimited for December 6, 2015 will be “The Compositions of Irving Berlin.”   Composer Irving Berlin was part of a group of Eastern European Jews whose families immigrated to the United States to escape persecution in the late 1800’s.  Even though there was a lot of prejudice against them, these immigrants invented the music publishing industry.  Quite a few of these immigrants were composers who wrote the Great American Songbook.  The compositions of Irving Berlin will be played on this show by the Ralph Sutton/Dick Hyman duo, a Louis Armstrong/Ella Fitzgerald vocal duet, Eddie Condon, Art Tatum, Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Lester Young, Ray Charles, Jeff Hamilton, The Dutch Jazz Orchestra, Fred Hersch, Charlie Parker, Bill Evans, John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins, among others.

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

Here is an appearance of Irving Berlin on the Dinah Shore show in 1952 demonstrating his "transposing piano."

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.