[Dixielandjazz] Marian McPartland

[Steve Barbone]

>From The Berkeley Daily Planet today. Tom Wiggins, Nancy Giffin et al in the
Bay Area, go see this legend at Yoshi's.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

 
Marian McPartland Embodies Jazz History
By Ira Steingroot, Special to the Planet


If you¹ve seen the film A Great Day in Harlem, you may have noticed that of
the 57 jazz legends who showed up to be photographed by Art Kane standing on
the stoop of a Harlem brownstone at 17 East 126th Street between Fifth and
Madison Avenues on an August morning in 1958, only three of them were women
and only one of the three was white.

The three women were the great Kansas City pianist, Mary Lou Williams, known
as ³the lady who swings the band² when she performed with the Andy Kirk
orchestra; vocalist Maxine Sullivan, famous for swinging Loch Lomond; and
Marian McPartland, originally from Berkshire, England, who has spent the
last 64 years playing jazz piano and educating people all over the world
about this quintessentially black American music.

Besides being the only white woman in the photo, and the only player not
born in the USA, McPartland is one of only six survivors from that photo
shoot, along with Sonny Rollins, Johnny Griffin, Hank Jones, Horace Silver
and Benny Golson. Golson¹s presence, in what may be the most famous jazz
photo of all time, led to his small but pivotal role in Steven Spielberg¹s
film, The Terminal.

McPartland¹s film career has been more limited than that, but her radio
career has been astounding. Her weekly one hour public radio show, Piano
Jazz, is the longest-running cultural program on NPR. Her first show aired
in 1978 and over the years she has interviewed, featured and dueted with the
likes of Lionel Hampton, Mary Lou Williams, Dorothy Donegan (a great jazz
pianist otherwise given short shrift by jazz critics), Jay McShann and
Johnny Guarnieri.

Many of these shows are available on CD and they retain their musical and
historical interest after repeated listening because, for once, the
interviewer knows the true value of the music and musicians she is
interviewing. She also knows what to ask them to play to showcase their
lives and talents. When she joins her guests at the piano, the duets are
spontaneous examples of the kind of telepathic communication plus virtuosity
that only occurs at the highest level of jazz performance.

I first heard McPartland at the Charcoal House in my hometown of Toledo,
Ohio around 1965. She and her husband, cornetist Jimmy McPartland, an
original member of Chicago¹s Austin High School Gang, were playing the local
restaurant. She was the pianist in Jimmy¹s Dixieland band and when the band
took a breather she continued to perform solo. Only it was not Dixieland,
but bebop piano that she played between the band¹s sets. Jimmy and Marian
had met during WWII through the USO and, although her style was still
evolving, they found a way to perform together without any of the rancor
that was usually associated with Dixieland/bop confrontations.

Her style has continued to evolve, but she still plays with the same
crystalline clarity, spinning out flowing, articulate right hand melodic
lines while backing them with inventive left hand harmonies and rhythmic
accents. She has obviously learned from bebop pianists, but she also has a
profound knowledge and understanding of the entire jazz keyboard tradition.
That quality that makes her radio show so fascinating is rooted in her own
curiosity and desire to learn about all the ways jazz can be played and
swung on a keyboard. It is that combination of eagerness to learn, technical
mastery, a brilliant mind still able to be amazed at what takes place during
the jazz creative process and a soul overflowing with song that makes Marian
McPartland one of the great living giants of jazz.



Marian McPartland appears Thursday through Sunday at Yoshi¹s, with shows at
8 and 10 p.m., except on Sundays when they are at 7 and 9 p.m. 510
Embarcadero West, Oakland. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com.