© 2024 St. Louis Public Radio
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

The Compositions Of Carla Bley

Jazz Unlimited for May 14 will be “The Compositions of Carla Bley.” Composer, arranger and bandleader Carla Bley continues to work at age 81.  Her first compositions were recorded by the George Russell sextet.  These elegiac, sometimes sardonic and witty compositions will be played by George Russell, her own groups and big bands, Gary Burton, Jimmy Giuffre, the Charlie Haden Liberation Music Orchestra, John McLaughlin, Art Farmer & Jim Hall, Paul Bley, Orrin Evans and Tony Williams’ Lifetime.

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

The Archive of this show will be available until the morning of May 22, 2017.

webju051417hour2.mp3
Jazz Unlimited 5/14/17 Hour 2 Archive
webju051417hour3.mp3
Jazz Unlimited 5/14/17 Hour 3 Archive

Here is the Carla Bley Band playing "Reactionary Tango" in Poland with Carla Blay (p) Arturo O'Farrill (org) Steve Swallow (el-b) Michael Mantler (tp) Steve Slagle (sop) Gary Valente (tb) Tony Digradi (ts) and others in Poland in the mid-1980's.

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.