[Dixielandjazz] The Grand Dame of OKOM

[Steve barbone]

Marion McPartland, a much neglected (by this list) OKOM pianist.  Doing
something for the music the rest of us can only dream about. How fortunate I
was to have seen her frequently at the Hickory House a half decade ago. My
buddy Chuck Traeger played bass for her in those halcyon days for jazz.

I originally went to see her because she was "Jimmy's" wife. Now? She is a
national treasure in the world of jazz. You go, girl.

Cheers,
Steve

Jazz Review | Marian McPartland
A Master Class in Obscure Jazz

By NATE CHINEN - September 14, 2005 - NY Times

Marian McPartland climbed the stage unsteadily at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola on
Tuesday night, and apologized for her sensible shoes. The pianist, who is
87, explained that she had injured her ankle falling down some stairs; she
had a bad knee already. "So now I don't have a leg to stand on," she said.
Characteristically, Ms. McPartland played the line not for sympathy but for
laughs. Then she turned to the piano and began a solo performance that cast
all thoughts of frailty aside.

Ms. McPartland has been one of the most widely heard jazz pianists of the
last 25 years, but not by the usual means. As creator and host of the weekly
radio show "Piano Jazz," heard on NPR, she has engaged hundreds of musicians
in dialogue of both the verbal and musical sort, instructing untold
thousands of listeners along the way. Informative but never pedagogical, she
has stood for the notion that jazz, whatever its claims as an American
treasure, should feel breezy and alive.

The capacity crowd at Dizzy's was deeply familiar with Ms. McPartland's
cocktail of education and entertainment. They listened with evident rapture
to her between-song patter, which returned several times to her tenure, some
50 years ago, as house pianist at the Hickory House on Fifty-Second Street.
When Ms. McPartland introduced "Singin' the Blues" as a song she learned
from her husband - the Dixieland cornetist Jimmy McPartland, who died in
1991 - there were more than a few commiserating sighs.

Noting her inclusion on the monthlong Diet Coke Women in Jazz Festival, Ms.
McPartland frontloaded her set with songs written by women. She applied a
subtle re-harmonization to "What's Your Story, Morning Glory?" by Mary Lou
Williams, the pioneering pianist-composer who had been the inaugural guest
on "Piano Jazz." Ms. McPartland took a less reverential approach with
"Lullaby of the Leaves," a standard by Bernice Petkere, and waxed wistfully
impressionistic on "Rain on the Roof," a lovely obscurity by Anne Ronell.

The rediscovery of castaway songs is an obvious delight for Ms. McPartland,
who reveled in "The Clothed Woman," a lesser-known Duke Ellington gem; its
bluesy angularity and classical undertones complemented her unassumingly
modernistic style. On a more shopworn number from the Ellington band book,
"Take the 'A' Train," she eschewed the usual stomping rhythmic buoyancy -
not her strong suit as a pianist - in favor of darkly chromatic bass-clef
figures that nodded to the avant-garde.

In concert as on the radio, Ms. McPartland is an attentive
conversationalist, so it was only natural that she paused to mine the
audience for requests. There were two - "Billy Strayhorn" and "something for
New Orleans" - and each was lovingly fulfilled. Along with "Take the 'A'
Train," Ms. McPartland played Strayhorn's "Lush Life," with a tone and tempo
suggestive of bittersweet molasses. But she was at her finest on "New
Orleans," an underplayed Hoagy Carmichael number that she performed in a
plaintive cadence, with her modest brand of self-assurance