John Owens: In Chicago

Photographer King Ganaway (left); Ganaway’s “The Spirit of Transportation” (right) Back in 2012, I wrote a story and produced a short video for the Chicago Tribune about a white Midwestern family that had just come to terms with an unexpected and extraordinary ancestor: a celebrated Black Chicago photographer named King D. Ganaway.

Rich “Goose” Gossage, David Fletcher, Todd Gossage and John Owens (left to right) at MacKenzie’s Chop House in Colorado Springs, Col. on Feb. 15, 2026. There are interviews and then there are visits that feel like you’ve stepped into baseball folklore. A few days ago, my friend andChili Dog MVP co-author, Dr. David Fletcher, traveled with me to Colorado Springs, Col. to spend time with Baseball Hall of Fame reliever Rich “Goose” Gossage for our upcoming docu-series My Father, Dick Allen.

“Kind of Blue” had just been released a few months earlier when Miles Davis headed a New Year’s Eve 1959 bill studded with jazz stars at the Regal Theatre on Chicago’s South Side. As another New Year arrives, it’s worth remembering a moment when Chicago stood at a cultural crossroads—Thursday, December 31, 1959. On that New Year’s Eve, the city rang in the 1960s with an impressive concentration of music and performance.

Now here’s a Chicago musician who should be celebrated a whole lot more than he is. Born December 10, 1913, on the South Side, Ray Nance was one of those once-in-a-lifetime artists who didn’t just play music — he performed it, embodied it, danced it. Trumpet, cornet, violin, vocals, dancing… he did it all. He’s best known for his solo on the first (1941) recording of Duke Ellington’s theme song, “Take the A Train” — a solo that is as memorable as the timeless Billy Strayhorn composition.

I don’t collect a lot of memorabilia, but I do have a few items. One of my most prized possessions is a 1955 program guide for a legendary NFL game between two intra-city rivals, the Chicago Cardinals and Chicago Bears, which occurred 70 years ago today. It was the Cardinals’ last great moment in Chicago, a 53–14 shellacking of the mighty Monsters of the Midway on Nov.