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The Career of Milt Jackson

Jazz Unlimited for Sunday, June 5, 2016 will be “The Career of Milt Jackson.”  Vibraphonist Milt Jackson (1923-1999) was born in Detroit and started playing guitar at age seven and piano at age 11.  His music came from the church.  Dizzy Gillespie discovered him in 1945.  Best known for his long tenure with the Modern Jazz Quartet, his career in jazz spanned 54 performing years with artists that ranged from Ray Charles and Woody Herman to Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane.   In addition to his own groups, we will bear Jackson with Fats Navarro, Coleman Hawkins, Frank Morgan, Kenny Clarke, Count Basie, Wes Montgomery, the Oliver Nelson Big Band, Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderley, Jimmy Giuffre, Sonny Rollins, Joe Pass, Hank Mobley, Freddie Hubbard, Herbie Hancock and the Very Tall band of Oscar Peterson, Jackson and Ray Brown.

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

The Archive of this show will be available until the morning of June 13, 2016.

Here is a version of "Red Top" played by Milt Jackson (vib) Clark Terry (tp) Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis (ts) Monty Alexander (p) Ray Brown (b) and Jimmie Smith (d) at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1977.

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.