Jazz Articles about Marian McPartland

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Marian McPartland in Huntsville, Alabama, February 27, 2004

by Ken Dryden
March 17, 2004

Still going strong at 85, Marian McPartland hardly coasts her way through a concert, playing a predictable set. She does have her favorite quips, quoting Lawrence Welk’s insistence on introducing Billy Strayhorn’s best known composition as “Take a Train," or dedicating Chick Corea’s “Windows" to Microsoft founder Bill Gates, but her performances always contain (as Whitney Balliett describes memorable jazz) “the sound of surprise."

Two favorite collaborators from Chicago, bassist Jim Cox and drummer Charles Braugham, accompanied her ...

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Marian McPartland: Windows

by John Kelman
February 18, 2004

While the time has hopefully passed where a person’s gender should have any impact on the recognition they receive for their art, still it should be noted that pianist Marian McPartland, now entering her eighty-sixth year, has been both a musical trend-setter and role model for more than one generation of aspiring female jazz instrumentalists.

In a time where a woman’s association with jazz was, at best, relegated to the role of vocalist, McPartland not only emerged ...

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Marian McPartland/Willie Pickens: Ain't Misbehavin': Live at the Jazz Showcase

by Dave Nathan
September 1, 2001

One usually hears Marian McPartland working in tandem with another pianist on her long running NPR show. But here she matches up with venerable Chicago piano stylist Willie Pickens during a week long run at Joe Segal's Jazz Showcase in the Windy City in December of 2000. What a happy Christmas present for Chicago jazz fans. This album compiles the highlight from that endeavor. There's no fooling with original or unfamiliar material on this gig. These two sublime pianists do ...

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Marian McPartland & Willie Pickens: Ain't Misbehavin'

by Jim Santella
September 1, 2001

Five duets and two solo pieces apiece give veteran pianists Marian McPartland and Willie Pickens plenty of room to stretch out. This live session was recorded just before Christmas last year at Joe Segal's Jazz Showcase in Chicago. The program of chestnuts leaves room for individual interpretation, as well as the chance to recall a familiar melody or two. Handfuls of keys are flying everywhere; but, with purpose. Pickens, who began his career with Eddie Harris on his memorable hit ...

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Marian McPartland and Willie Pickens: Ain't Misbehavin'-- Live at the Jazz Showcase

by Bob Powers
August 1, 2001

Liner notes can produce fascinating facts. In the notes by Neil Tesser for “Ain’t Misbehavin’ -- Live at the Jazz Showcase, we learn that McPartland got her start in show business in a British musical act called Billy Mayerl and His Claviers. That insignificant fact points out that McPartland has been around for a long time. She reaches 81 this year and finding evidence of any decline in her abilities requires cautious listening.In this pairing with Chicago legend ...

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Marian McPartland: The Single Petal Of A Rose

by John Sharpe
October 1, 2000

Like pure spring water from a bottomless well, jazz musicians continue to draw inspiration from the mammoth Ellington songbook. Pianist Marian McPartland, who has spent more than 60 years in music, adds to an ever-growing number of tribute CDs with the classy Single Petal Of A Rose. Recording live before an intimate gathering of 50 at the Maybeck Studio for the Performing Arts in Berkeley, CA, seems to have contributed to the session's warm, relaxed feel. Working with bassist Bill ...

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Marian McPartland: On 52nd Street

by AAJ Staff
May 1, 2000

Re-release by re-release, Savoy Jazz is revealing for jazz enthusiasts the richness of its library, built with an iron fist but with perspicacity, by owner Herman Lubinsky. The latest re-issue to astound listeners with head-scratching wonder (I wonder why this wasn't available before) is a documentation of some of Marian McPartland's earliest popular recordings, which led to her later renown. An institution at the Hickory House in the 1950's, McPartland's trio went through several personnel changes. Concord's “Hickory House Trio ...