[Dixielandjazz] Marian McPartland book reviewed - Washington Post, January 13, 2013

[Robert Ringwald]

An Unlikely Jazz Celebrity
"Shall We Play That One Together?: The Life and Art of Jazz Piano Legend Marian McPartland"
by Paul De Barros (St. Martin's)
by Matt Schudel
Washington Post, January 13, 2013
For years, Marian McPartland was defined by an offhand comment that critic Leonard
Feather made in the jazz magazine Down Beat in 1951. McPartland, wrote the British-born
Feather, had "three hopeless strikes against her": She was British, white and female.
She often made a joke of her "handicaps" in the male-dominated world of an American
music born of the black experience, but this new biography by Seattle jazz writer
Paul de Barros shows the difficulty of her struggle and the determination behind
her success.
McPartland, who turns 95 next March, came to the United States in the 1940s after
marrying jazz cornetist Jimmy McPartland. She spent decades paying her musical dues
but gained her greatest renown only after turning 60, when she became host of the
popular public radio program "Piano Jazz."
Born Margaret Marian Turner into a strict, class-conscious British family, she studied
at a London conservatory, then dropped out to join a touring piano quartet, adopting
the stage name Marian Payne and later Marian Page. During World War II, she entertained
troops throughout Europe and grew accustomed to the world of show business. Some
of the most interesting parts of de Barros's biography describe this phase of her
life, as the sheltered girl from a proper background became an assertive, independent
woman.
In Belgium during the war, she met Jimmy McPartland, a brash, charismatic cornet
player who had been a major figure in Chicago jazz since the 1920s. They married
in 1945, and Jimmy introduced his new bride to Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and
the life of jazz. For Jimmy, much of that life revolved around drinking, and the
marriage was troubled from the start.
After the McPartlands moved to New York in 1950, Marian began to flourish. She was
one of 57 musicians -- and one of four still living -- in the famous 1958 jazz group
portrait known as "A Great Day in Harlem." She spent much of the 1950s performing
at New York's Hickory House, where one of her drummers was Joe Morello, who later
gained acclaim during his long association with Dave Brubeck. Even though both McPartland
and Morello were married to others, they had a long, passionate affair that McPartland,
de Barros writes, found "terrifying, thrilling, guilt-producing, and unbelievably
fulfilling." After almost a decade she broke off the affair and went into psychoanalysis.
Her shaky marriage collapsed a few years later.
At a time when the women's movement was taking hold, McPartland began to blossom
as a musician and journalist, writing reviews and profiles for jazz magazines and
occasionally appearing on the radio. In 1978, she found the perfect outlet for her
skills when she recorded the first episodes of "Piano Jazz," an hour-long program
in which she and another musician, usually a pianist, talked about jazz and performed
together, often creating memorable music.
"Each show had a different atmosphere and mood," de Barros writes, "depending on
the guest." For jazz fans, the guest list is a stroll through Valhalla: Dizzy Gillespie,
Bill Evans, Mary Lou Williams, Carmen McRae, Tony Bennett, Shirley Horn, Dave Brubeck,
Chick Corea, Diana Krall -- even Willie Nelson and Elvis Costello. Broadcast on hundreds
of NPR stations, "Piano Jazz" made McPartland a star and helped codify jazz as a
distinct, established art form. "A more perfect vehicle for McPartland would be hard
to imagine," de Barros writes, "in that it satisfied both her great desire to thrust
brilliant jazz players into the limelight and to share that limelight herself. Its
hybrid nature as journalism and performance was a perfect match."
Before McPartland retired as host of "Piano Jazz" in 2009, she had become one of
the most revered people in jazz. She performed at the White House and the Supreme
Court, received countless awards and was designated a Jazz Master by the National
Endowment for the Arts. She also reunited with her ex-husband and lived with him
for 11 years. They remarried shortly before Jimmy McPartland's death in 1991.
McPartland gave de Barros full access to her letters, private journals and other
material, and he writes knowledgeably about her music and career. He provides an
intimate look at McPartland's life, but not always a flattering one. She could be
simultaneously generous and stingy, demanding, kind or disdainful. "In fourteen years,"
her onetime agent said, "she never said thank you to anything. Ever."
"Shall We Play That One Together?" -- a phrase McPartland often used on "Piano Jazz"
-- has moments of insight and revelation. Too often, though, de Barros gets bogged
down in the minutiae of family lore and decades-old nightclub reviews. He seldom
reaches the inspired levels of, say, David Hajdu's "Lush Life," about Billy Strayhorn,
or Robin D.G. Kelley's "Thelonious Monk."
Still, he creates a valuable portrait of one of the most beloved and enduring figures
in jazz, one whose life continues to be an example of grace, intelligence and strength.
-30-


-Bob Ringwald
www.ringwald.com
Amateur (ham) Radio Operator K6YBV

Right now, I'm having amnesia and deja-vu at the same time. 
I think I've forgotten this before.