H. Owen Reed

Reed was raised in rural Odessa, Missouri, where his first exposure to music was his father's playing of the old-time fiddle (accompanied by his mother at the piano).

[1] After starting to play jazz in college, he continued beyond his hundredth year, including membership in a Michigan State faculty combo known as the "Geriatric Six.

[citation needed] Reed's best known and most widely performed work is the three-movement concert band composition La Fiesta Mexicana (1949), composed with the support of a Guggenheim Fellowship.

His band composition Missouri Shindig (1951) is based on the American fiddle tune "Give the Fiddler a Dram," which his father had particularly enjoyed playing.

[3] Spiritual (1947), Reed's first composition for band, is based on his recollection of overhearing the exuberant religious expression of African American churchgoers while passing by their churches as a child.