Jimmy Owens (musician) Jimmy Owens (musician) Jimmy Owens (born December 9, 1943 in New York City, NY) is a jazz trumpeter, composer, arranger, lecturer, and educator. He has played with Lionel Hampton, Charles Mingus, Hank Crawford, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Herbie Mann, among many others. Since 1969, he has led his own group, Jimmy Owens Plus. Jimmy Owens was born on December 9, 1943, in New York City, New York. He is a jazz trumpeter and, in addition, plays the flugelhorn. He is also a well-known composer, lecturer, arranger and music education consultant, harnessing more than 45 years of musical experience. Owens does
Dizzy Gillespie a session led by Coleman Hawkins with Gillespie as a featured sideman on February 16, 1944 (Apollo), the first formal recording of bebop. He appeared in recordings by the Billy Eckstine band and started recording prolifically as a leader and sideman in early 1945. He was not content to let bebop sit in a niche of small groups in small clubs. A concert by one of his small groups in New York's Town Hall on June 22, 1945 presented bebop to a broad audience; recordings of it were released in 2005. He started to organize big bands in late 1945.