Happy 90th Birthday Marian McPartland

[Lois Gilbert]

Pioneer Marian McPartland closing in on 90
Pianist to celebrate her birthday at Lincoln Center
By Howard Reich

TRIBUNE CRITIC

March 16, 2008

Marian McPartland knows exactly what she wants for her 90th birthday: Stevie Wonder.

That is she'd like to have the master songwriter finally agree to be a guest on her long-running, globally syndicated radio show, "Piano Jazz" (which airs locally at 6 p.m. Saturdays on WFMT-FM 98.7).

Short of that, pianist McPartland -- who reaches her milestone birthday on Thursday -- realizes she has achieved just about everything else that can be accomplished in a life in jazz. Having riffed with everyone from Tony Bennett to Elvis Costello on her 29-year-old radio show, having recorded more than 60 albums and shattered more glass ceilings than she can remember, she believes she's entitled to slow her tempo just a bit.

"I don't want to do long trips anymore -- I'm so sick of what's going on in the airlines, though I'd probably come out to play for Joe Segal's new place," says McPartland, referring to Chicago's celebrated Jazz Showcase, which is scheduled to reopen in the spring.

Started in Chicago

Clearly McPartland keeps pace with developments in the city where the British-born pianist launched her American career, in 1945. Yet she battles the vicissitudes of age.

"I fractured my pelvis -- stupidly, tripping over something in my bedroom -- but I'm over it now," she adds, indomitably, speaking from her home in Long Island, N.Y. "I've got such bad arthritis in my knees I can't walk, but my hands are OK, I still can play."

That's unmistakable from her newest CD, "Twilight World" (Concord Records), which was released last Tuesday and seduces the ear with the poetry of her original compositions (including the widely known title track) and the signature lyricism of her pianism. Though the disc, not surprisingly, shows less technical prowess than McPartland commanded even a decade ago -- as a youthful septuagenarian -- the warm glow of her tone and the expressive complexity of her harmonies make "Twilight World" one of her most appealing releases.

That's no small feat in a discography that includes such pleasures as the softly shimmering "Silent Pool" (with Alan Broadbent's lush string arrangements) and a long list of CDs documenting her "Piano Jazz" shows with such noteworthy guests as pianists Eubie Blake and Bill Evans, trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie and Clark Terry and saxophonist Lee Konitz (on Concord's Jazz Alliance subsidiary).

But it's the totality of McPartland's career -- as pianist, composer, bandleader, jazz advocate, writer and former record-label owner -- that inspires accolades from her colleagues on the occasion of her 90th.

"I've always been in awe of her musicality ... and what she stands for and her playing and, obviously, her longevity," says pianist Dick Hyman, who has scored several of Woody Allen's films.

"She's a great example of expanding one's talents to cover all kinds of media," observes Chicago pianist-broadcaster Ramsey Lewis, himself a multimedia phenomenon. "But I don't think any of this would have happened if she had not started out being a wonderful pianist.

"I've admired her continuously -- ever since I first heard her in the London House in Chicago and was amazed at her ability to swing. The longevity of her 'Piano Jazz' show speaks to her ability to talk to Everyman."

'First role model'

Adds former Chicagoan Judy Roberts, writing via e-mail from Bangkok, where she's in residence this winter, "As a young jazz-playing teen, I worshiped her from afar. She was my first role model as not only a woman who played great piano but also as an artist who presented herself as a liberated jazz musician."

McPartland, in other words, refused to conform to the constraints routinely applied to women in jazz through most of the 20th Century. Though she began her travels in music as a precocious 3-year-old noodling Chopin waltzes she heard at home in Windsor, England, she quickly gravitated toward jazz. Musicians such as Duke Ellington, Mary Lou Williams, Hazel Scott, Benny Goodman, Teddy Wilson and James P. Johnson thundered on radio and record, and the emerging artist could not resist.

Except for a few months of lessons on piano and two tortuous years on violin (at her mother's insistence), McPartland essentially taught herself to play. An extremely acute ear and a natural facility on the keyboard won her admission to London's prestigious Guildhall School of Music, which she suffered for three years.

"One day a professor heard me in the practice room, and he opened up the door while I was trying to play like [Art] Tatum, and he said, 'Stop playing that trash,'" she once told the Tribune.

"And that really made me want to do jazz all the more."

So in 1938 she announced to her parents that she had accepted a spot with Bill Mayerl and the Claviers, a four-piano vaudeville act. Her father, who was "horrified," she says, offered her 1,000 pounds to turn down the job, but Margaret Marian Turner promptly renamed herself Marian Page, quit school and went on the road. While playing USO shows across Europe during World War II, she met the revered Chicago cornetist Jimmy McPartland, who had led the city's fabled Austin High Gang of nascent jazz musicians.

The couple were married at a military base in Germany in 1945 and moved to Chicago later that year, cornetist McPartland constantly encouraging his bride to lead her own bands.

"Jimmy always seemed to be so proud of everything I did, even if it was terrible," says the pianist.

But it wasn't always easy.

Fought sexism

"There certainly was not a good feeling toward women musicians years ago," says McPartland. "I remember [bassist] Milt Hinton saying, 'I don't mind working with a woman musician, so long as she can play.'

"I think that was the prevailing thought at the time -- that the woman couldn't play as well as the man. It wasn't until they found out we all could that things started to change."

If McPartland's jazz career began in earnest in Chicago, it blossomed in New York, where she moved with her husband in 1949. In Manhattan, McPartland pushed well beyond her husband's vintage-jazz idiom and into the newer, brasher, more musically challenging world of bebop. Her trio became something of an institution at Hickory House, on 52nd Street, through most of the '50s, gaining fame especially for its mid-decade lineup with drummer Joe Morello and bassist Bill Crow.

As youth-oriented rock 'n' roll pushed jazz out of the commercial marketplace in the 1960s, McPartland found she couldn't get a record deal, so she simply started a label of her own, Halcyon.

"Stan Kenton had his own record company, and Charles Mingus did," says McPartland, "so I thought, 'I'll start my own,'" which she did in 1970, becoming one of the first women jazz musicians to do so.

"It was hard work -- finding a distributor, selecting art, hiring musicians -- but it was wonderful too," adds McPartland, who ran Halcyon for more than 15 years, recording pianists Earl Hines, Ellis Larkins, Teddy Wilson, Dave McKenna and, of course, herself.

Known as jazz advocate

But it's "Piano Jazz," which McPartland inaugurated in April 1979 and records in Manhattan, that made her one of the world's most widely known jazz advocates. Inspired by an earlier radio show hosted by songwriter Alec Wilder, who had recommended her for the radio show, "Piano Jazz" from the beginning unfolded as a breezy mix of conversation and musicmaking.

McPartland did not expect it to last for more than a couple of seasons, let alone become the longest-running cultural program on National Public Radio, which distributes it to several hundred stations around the world. Her triumph with "Piano Jazz," as well as her work in so many other arenas, has dramatically extended the possibilities for women in jazz. Though earlier-generation players such as pianists Lil Hardin and Mary Lou Williams were among the first to defy gender stereotypes in jazz, McPartland has flourished in more media and reached larger audiences.

"She has been a pioneer," says Richard Wang, music professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago and vice president of the non-profit Jazz Institute of Chicago.

"She's had to fight that battle. It fortunately has been won now, but she was the person who was mainly responsible for winning it. She has shown, as no other person has, that a woman player can be the centerpiece of the music."

On Wednesday, the eve of her 90th, she'll play Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola, at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York, sharing the stage with Regina Carter, Karrin Allyson, Billy Taylor, Jason Moran and others.

"I just want to do this party and then collapse for a while," says McPartland, who has no birthday celebration scheduled for Chicago. It's an omission that some savvy impresario ought to rectify immediately, considering her deep ties to the city -- she and her husband in 1990 donated all their papers and memorabilia to the Chicago Jazz Archive at the University of Chicago.

"I don't mind turning 90," McPartland adds. "It beats any alternative I can think of."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entert...46,print.story

[Tom Marcello]

Happy Birthday to Marian.

Here's one of my photos from 1975 or so:

[Ron Thorne]

What a remarkable lady — truly a treasure.



Happy 90th Birthday, Marian McPartland!

[gonzo]

90, thats quite a feat. happy b-day ms. mcpartland.

[makpjazz57]

Here's an L.A. Times article on Marian and her upcoming birthday (from Sunday, March 16):

JAZZ
Marian McPartland's improvised life
The NPR radio-show host and jazz pianist turns 90 this week, and she's doing it in style.
By Paul Lieberman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
March 16, 2008
NEW YORK -- MARIAN McPARTLAND, 89, has just finished playing the standard "These Foolish Things," so jazz singer Rebecca Parris serves her a compliment.

"Marian, you made me cry," she says. "From your second eight, I had tears in my eyes."

"As long as it wasn't holding your nose," McPartland says back from the wheelchair behind her piano.

"No, I was not," Parris says. "It was beautiful, darling."

They do the same verbal dance minutes later, when McPartland asks the Boston-based singer if they might do a number together, "if you think you have enough faith."

"Be real," Parris says. "It's a privilege. You know that."

Later, McPartland dismisses the self-deprecation as "just sort of polite nonsense," banter to fill the space on the "Piano Jazz" radio show she's been doing on NPR for a mere 29 years. But she adds, "I suppose I mean it a little bit. I wasn't thrilled how I played for her. It was OK, you know?"

FOR THE RECORD: Pianist Marian McPartland's hometown is given in this article as Port Jefferson, Wash. It is Port Washington. Also, Jack Lemmon never appeared on her NPR radio show.


Some people like having a fuss made over them, some don't. And some fall in between, insisting they don't want the attention, but putting up with it, maybe even inviting it a tad and, in spite of themselves, enjoying it -- sort of the way McPartland is going about turning 90 this week, when she has a special birthday gig at the Jazz at Lincoln Center complex of clubs.

She recalls how her late husband, Jimmy McPartland, the cornet player who grew up alongside Louis Armstrong in the rough Chicago jazz scene, loved it when people would gather around late at night. She was the reserved Englishwoman, born Margaret Marian Turner, who didn't smoke or drink, and she'd nudge him, "Let's get out of here," and he'd say, "No, let's leave gracefully," she recalls. "He always said that, 'Let's leave gracefully.' And he did. In more ways than one."

She had a lot to do with him leaving gracefully, of course. They met in 1944 while entertaining British and American troops in Belgium -- he performing while still in the Army, after participating in the Normandy landing, she as part of a four-piano act -- and were married a year later at a military base in Germany. She played with him after they settled in the States, but he encouraged her to get her own group, which is how she wound up leading a trio at the Hickory House restaurant-club in Manhattan. That's where critic Leonard Feather saw her and declared that she had three strikes against her in the jazz world: "being English, white and a woman."

Ages afterward, when he went on her radio show, Feather swore it was a joke, she recalls, and "I said, 'That was no joke, Leonard,' but it never bothered me. It kind of spurred me on." Well, her run at the Hickory House lasted eight years, until 1960, and it was the same pattern with the radio show, which began in 1979 with funding for 13 weeks. It's still on, with most of the hourlong shows recorded in the Manhattan studio where she was goes back and forth, verbally and musically -- improvising without rehearsal -- with the biggest names in jazz and also over the years with celebrity musicians ( Jack Lemmon, Clint Eastwood), Broadway veterans ( Betty Buckley), even opera and country singers (Renée Fleming, Willie Nelson). In Southern California, the show appears on KCLU-FM (88.3) from 11 p.m. to midnight on Fridays.

Back to Jimmy, though. He was a boozer from day one, and there were other issues, and they divorced in 1967. But they remained friends and neighbors on Long Island, and when he got cancer she took him into her Port Jefferson home, made room for a nurse in the basement, made sure his records were playing, and remarried him two weeks before the end in 1991. That's how, at 83, "he died gracefully," she notes.

When her time comes, she won't be returning to England but Chicago -- she has a plot next to Jimmy's for her ashes, "bought and paid for," she says, "because I didn't think any of the McPartlands would pay for it," that quip offered with a healthy laugh. She's relating this in a rear lounge after the show, on which her voice again was deep, smooth and assured, giving listeners not a clue as to what a struggle it is for her to get to that piano. She's broken both hips and her pelvis and her wrist twice, both injuries coming when she fell off her porch while gardening. Then there's the arm she broke on a trip back to England to perform, and the arthritis that crept into her fingers years ago. "I hope I still have my marbles," she says, another comment inviting the obvious response that she does, indeed.

Duke Ellington, who regularly had dinner at the Hickory House, was said to have told her, early on, "You play so many notes," and thus taught her a less-is-more wisdom that she carries over from her music to her interviews. So it is on this show, when Parris introduces "This is Always" by saying, "I always sing this to my hubby Paul because it describes how we met."

McPartland says, "Oh, really?" and out comes the juicy detail, of how the singer's ex-husband introduced her to her current mate. "I'm a bad girl," Parris says.

Stories spill out

THERE are jazz tidbits from her guest too, like how like how Miles Davis may have turned his back on the audience, "but he wore gold lamé when he did it," or how she and Dizzy Gillespie were playing the Charles Hotel in Cambridge "and he stole my bacon off my breakfast." Then Parris blurts out another personal gem, the tale of how the girlfriend of Sarah Vaughan's piano player introduced her to a grown jazz enthusiast whose mother had died when the daughter was 2 . . . and whom Parris eventually adopted. "My goodness!" is all McPartland has to say, and the singer goes on, "She needed a mommy and I needed a little girl."

McPartland is judicious about throwing in her own stories, for it would be hard for any guest to top, say, how a pesky armchair critic once asked her, "Is there any sex in your music?" and she replied, as the elegant Englishwoman, "There sure is -- especially if you're going with the drummer." The folks at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola in the Jazz at Lincoln Center complex at Columbus Circle wanted her to do five nights of concerts to commemorate her birthday and the release of her album "Twilight World," her 21st in 29 years for the Concord label. She understands that birthday concertscan be genuine gesturesand show biz -- she had them for her 80th and 85th -- but five nights at 90? She first talked them down to three, then to one, though she will do two shows Wednesday -- both sold out -- with violinist Regina Carter, singers Norah Jones and Karrin Allyson, fellow pianist Bill Charlap and other guests.

"Five nights? . . . I knew I would collapse," she says. She also insisted that they not reserve a hotel room for her in the city, part of a strategy "all plotted out," she says, to escape quickly, almost Elvis-like. There won't exactly be a "Marian has left the building" announcement, but the war plan does call for her to thank everyone, "try to not sound rude by leaving," then high-tail it out with her wheelchair and "three or four stalwart friends to sort of bar the way," to keep off the crush of well-wishers. She'll pile into a waiting limo with Jimmy's granddaughter, from a previous marriage, and her nephew, both coming in from Europe, and with Gosia Gil, the woman who cares for her these days. They'll all whiz home "and yes, absolutely have a cup of tea. And go to bed."

A few years ago, she was self-conscious about not being able to walk to the piano, and would try to fake it, but "at this point I don't really care. I suppose they do want to see what I look like," she says with another laugh.

She was still deciding what she'd play, but Duke Ellington's "Take the 'A' Train" seemed likely to be in the mix.

Her tastes run in the classic jazz tradition -- Duke, Basie, Monk -- while her label describes her own songwriting as "lyrical romanticism," producing material recorded by Tony Bennett, Peggy Lee and others.

"'Blackberry Winter'," Gosia says, suggesting a number for the big night.

"How about `Windows?' " says Shari Hutchinson, the producer of her radio show, naming a Chick Corea tune.

"Oh, I don't know," McPartland says, "It might be one of my tunes or . . . I'll make up some blues, 'Birthday Blues.' "

It's been a grueling day, with the trip in from the island and the long recording session, with its takes, retakes and sound checks. It's time for her to shuffle with her walker toward the elevator, next to which hangs a copy of the famous "Great Day in Harlem" photo of jazz greats taken in 1958, and she's up there, a lass of 40 then.

"I'm not much of a birthday person. But this one they said is a milestone," she says at the elevator. "I said, 'No, it's a millstone.' "

They sometime go through a closing ritual, she and her veteran producer.

Hutchinson will say, "That was another wonderful show."

And Marian McPartland says back, "Fooled 'em again."
- - -
I was at this Piano Jazz recording session and Marian really did a beautiful rendition of "These Foolish Things." There's always something special happening when one of our beloved, older jazz musicians plays a ballad. She was also pretty funny and very personable and at this point in time, I don't think she'd be continuing with Piano Jazz if she didn't still find some enjoyment in it.

Marla

[Dr Dave]

From this morning's NY Times:

March 21, 2008
Music Review | Marian McPartland
Marking a Milestone With a Light Touch
By NATE CHINEN

After settling into her station at the piano on Wednesday night at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, Marian McPartland took a stab at solidarity. “Is anybody else here 90?” she asked, polling the crowded room.

There were no affirmative responses, so after a brief moment she moved on. In this place, at this moment, she was unique in more ways than one.

Ms. McPartland was presiding over her own 90th-birthday party with characteristic lightness and aplomb. While her gold lamé gown underscored a sense of occasion, she made sure to dispense with formality. “I guess I should say thank you to the Arthritis Foundation,” she said, eliciting much laughter. She seemed pleased by the piano-shaped cake that was eventually presented to her, but her focus was chiefly on the music.

This should surprise no one who has heard “Piano Jazz,” the entertaining and edifying show Ms. McPartland has had on public radio for nearly 29 years. “Piano Jazz” features thoughtful conversation and tandem playing by Ms. McPartland and her guests. The first set at Dizzy’s conveyed a similar feeling, though there wasn’t room enough for two pianos on the stage. So the only pianist to sit in was Jason Moran, who offered a warm and knowing solo rendition of “Time and Time Again,” one of Ms. McPartland’s compositions. The other musical guests fell in with Ms. McPartland and her longstanding trio, featuring Gary Mazzaroppi on bass and Glenn Davis on drums.

Jeremy Pelt, playing fluegelhorn, brought an easy grace to the songbook standard “Moonlight in Vermont.” Regina Carter imbued her violin with a hauntingly vocal quality on an exquisite reading of “Come Sunday,” the Duke Ellington hymn. Karrin Allyson sang a pair of enduring ballads by Ms. McPartland: “Twilight World” (lyrics by Johnny Mercer) and “There’ll Be Other Times” (lyrics by Margaret Jones).

And Norah Jones, who recalled seeing Ms. McPartland when Ms. Jones was 13 and hoarding bootleg cassettes of “Piano Jazz” — “You killed my social life, Marian,” she said — sang three standards in a row. They got progressively better: “Blame It on My Youth” was likable, but “Yesterdays,” sung at Ms. McPartland’s request, felt rewardingly like a stretch. For a moment Ms. Jones sounded like a true-blue jazz singer, even as she sounded like herself.

Ms. McPartland still has her pellucid touch and her careful yet comfortable style, as she demonstrated on several trio numbers, including “Turnaround,” a blues by Ornette Coleman. That tune can be heard on “Twilight World” (Concord), Ms. McPartland’s sparkling new studio album.

So can “Alfie,” the Burt Bacharach movie theme, which Ms. McPartland plays as a solo meditation. She included it in her set at Dizzy’s, and it was a quiet gem: sophisticated but simple, without an ounce of pretense or self-absorption. In other words, entirely appropriate.

[Derek Taylor]

Her new trio album on Concord ain't bad, especially for a nonagenerian!

[hornplayer]

Funny the writer said "Wednesday." The party was last night, Thursday.

Sure wish I had known about it before they announced it was sold out.

[Ron Thorne]

Originally Posted by Monte Smith

I used to like Piano Jazz. RIP.

Piano Jazz ain't dead, nor is Marian, thankfully.

Piano Jazz



Norah Jones performs with Marian McPartland.


Happy 90th to a grand lady, inspired musician and musical ambassador!


Edit:Updated to reflect the reason for my opening comment.

[Monte Smith]

Originally Posted by Jesse

The rumors are greatly exaggerated.

Glad to hear it. For my money, Marian McPartland attained her best greatness with that "Age of Aquarius" song.

[Lois Gilbert]

Originally Posted by hornplayer

Funny the writer said "Wednesday." The party was last night, Thursday.

Sure wish I had known about it before they announced it was sold out.

Hornplayer it was Wednesday.

[Lois Gilbert]

Jazz Grande Dame McPartland Turns 90
By CHARLES J. GANS
NEW YORK (AP) — Marian McPartland celebrated her 90th birthday in a style befitting the "Grande Dame of Piano Jazz" with a little help from friends like Norah Jones and Wynton Marsalis at Jazz at Lincoln Center.

"Getting up here is really a job," quipped McPartland, who has been slowed by arthritis in her legs and is recovering from a fractured pelvis, after being assisted onstage.

But the years fell away once her hands touched the keyboard.

She started both sets Wednesday night — on the eve of her actual birthday — with the traditional jazz tune "Royal Garden Blues," which she used to play in the band led by her late husband, cornetist Jimmy McPartland. The British-born pianist met the Chicago jazzman when they were entertaining troops in Belgium in 1944 and he introduced his war bride to American jazz audiences in the late 1940s.

McPartland also included selections from her latest album "Twilight World," showcasing her stylistic range and encyclopedic approach to the jazz repertoire — from solo piano versions of Burt Bacharach's "Alfie" and the obscure Alec Wilder ballad "Blackberry Winter" to avant-gardist Ornette Coleman's twisted blues "Turn Around," performed with her trio.

Jones, who returned to her jazz roots by singing "Blame It On My Youth," "The Nearness of You," and "Yesterdays," recalled she was 13 when she first heard the pianist at a Dallas jazz festival and spent many hours during her high school years listening to bootleg tapes of McPartland's "Piano Jazz," the longest-running cultural show on National Public Radio at 29 years and counting.

"Now thinking back (that) seems cool, but at the time ... you killed my social life," Jones joked. "But happy birthday and I'm so happy to be here and I love you madly."

Marsalis let his trumpet do the talking as he swung his way through Jerome Kern's "All the Things You Are" accompanied by McPartland's trio.

Afterward, the pianist remarked: "I first played with him when he was 15. ... He was as good then as he is now, maybe not as cheeky."

Singer Karrin Allyson highlighted McPartland's talents as a composer by performing several of the pianist's original tunes, including "Twilight World" and "There'll Be Other Times."

Other birthday bash guests included violinist Regina Carter, singer Jeanie Bryson, and several generations of jazz pianists — Jason Moran, Bill Charlap and Kenny Barron — who filled in when McPartland needed a break.

The audience shared slices of her piano-shaped cake and her NPR colleagues presented her with a "Marian McPuppet" in her image, which McPartland joked had "the wrong shade of lipstick."

"Each week Marian touches our hearts and delights our souls, and the truth is that you assure us that even when wars rage and banks collapse and husbands cheat, there is still music and beauty in the world," said NPR Vice President Margaret Low Smith.

After Allyson and trumpeter Jeremy Pelt teamed with McPartland's trio for a rousing finale on the blues "Centerpiece," the audience serenaded the pianist with a chorus of "Happy Birthday" accompanied by the birthday girl herself.

[clinthopson]

Having heard many of her programs over the years, I almost feel like I know that wonderful lady.