Charles Owens (saxophonist born 1939)

Charles M. Brown, better known as Charles Owens (born May 4, 1939, Phoenix, Arizona) is an American jazz saxophonist. Owens should not be confused with , an American jazz saxophonist born in 1972 who has recorded for Fresh Sound Records.

Owens began playing music while attending the University of San Diego; following a stint in the United States Armed Forces, he studied at Berklee College of Music. He worked in the bands of Buddy Rich and Mongo Santamaria as an alto saxophonist in the late 1960s, and in the 1970s played mostly tenor and soprano saxophone. He played in that decade with Bobby Bryant, Paul Humphrey, Diana Ross, John Mayall, Frank Zappa, Henry Franklin, Patrice Rushen, Gerald Wilson, Lorez Alexandria, and James Newton among others. He worked with Newton again in the mid-1980s, and also played in the 1980s with John Carter, Horace Tapscott, and Mercer Ellington. Later he worked with Carmen Bradford, Jeannie Cheatham and Jimmy Cheatham, and Buddy Childers.

References
David Wild, "Charles Owens". The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz. 2nd edition, ed. Barry Kernfeld, 2004.

Category:American jazz saxophonists
Category:American male saxophonists
Category:Musicians from Arizona
Category:1939 births
Category:Living people
Category:21st-century saxophonists
Category:21st-century American male musicians
Category:Male jazz musicians