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All Music Guide:
Marian McPartland has become famous for hosting her Piano Jazz radio program since 1978, but she was a well-respected pianist decades before. She played in a four-piano vaudeville act in England and performed on the European continent for the troops during World War II. In Belgium in 1944, she met cornetist Jimmy McPartland and they soon married. Marian moved with her husband to the United States in 1946, where she sometimes played with him even though her style was more modern than his Dixieland-oriented groups. McPartland eventually had her own trio at the Embers (1950) and the Hickory House (1952-1960), which until 1957 included drummer Joe Morello. She recorded regularly for Savoy and Capitol during the 1950s and also made sessions for Argo (1958), Time (1960 and 1963), Sesac, and Dot. Although eventually divorced from Jimmy, they remained close friends, sometimes played together, and even remarried just weeks before his death. She formed her own Halycon label and recorded several fine albums between 1969-1977. McPartland also made three albums for Tony Bennett's Improv label during 1976-1977 before signing with Concord, where she has been since 1978. The Jazz Alliance label has made available over 30 CD's worth of material from Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz show, some of which are quite fascinating and significant.
Wikipedia:
Margaret Marian McPartland, OBE (née Turner; born March 20, 1918) is an English-born jazz pianist, composer, writer, and was the host of Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz on National Public Radio until she stepped down on November 10, 2011.
Early life
Marian Turner was a musical prodigy from the time she could sit at the piano, about the age of three. She studied classical music and the violin, in addition to the piano.
Career
She pursued classical studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. Much to the dismay of her family, she developed a love for American jazz and musicians such as Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, Teddy Wilson, Mary Lou Williams, and many others. In 1938, despite her family's efforts to keep her at Guildhall, Marian left to join Billy Mayerl's Claviers, a four-piano vaudeville act, performing under the stage name of Marian Page. The group toured throughout Europe during World War II, entertaining Allied troops.
While touring with USO shows in Belgium, she met and began performing with Chicago cornetist Jimmy McPartland in 1944. The couple soon married, playing at their own military base wedding in Germany.
After the war, they moved to Chicago to be near Jimmy's family. Then, in 1949, the McPartlands settled in Manhattan, living in an apartment in the same building as the Nordstrom Sisters. With Jimmy's help and encouragement, Marian started her own trio which enjoyed a long residency at a New York City jazz club, the Hickory House, during 1952-1960. The drummer Joe Morello was a member of the group until he departed to join Dave Brubeck's Quartet. She also played at The Embers.
In the 1953-1954 season, McPartland appeared as a regular on NBC's Judge for Yourself quiz program emceed by Fred Allen, with Dennis James as the announcer.
After many years of recording for labels such as Capitol, Savoy, Argo, Sesac, Time, and Dot, in 1969 she founded her own record label, Halcyon Records, before having a long association with the Concord Jazz label.
Radio career
In 1964, Marian McPartland launched a new venture on WBAI-FM (New York City), conducting a weekly radio program that featured recordings and interviews with guests. Pacifica Radio's West Coast stations also carried this series, which paved the way for Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz, a National Public Radio series that began on June 4, 1978. It is the longest-running cultural program on NPR as well as being one of the longest-running jazz programs ever produced on public radio.
Several programs in the new series, which features McPartland at the keyboard with guest performers (usually pianists), have been released on CD by the Concord Records label. McPartland celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of the NPR series with a live taping at the Kennedy Center for which Peter Cincotti was the guest.
After not having recorded a new show since September 2010, NPR announced on November 10, 2011 that Ms. McPartland is stepping down as host of Piano Jazz.
Awards and compositions
Marian was awarded a Grammy in 2004, a Trustees' Lifetime Achievement Award, for her work as an educator, writer, and host of NPR Radio's long-running Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz. Although a master at adapting to her guest's musical styles and having a well-known affinity for beautiful and harmonically-rich ballads, she also has recorded many tunes of her own. Her compositions include "Ambiance", "There'll Be Other Times", "With You In Mind", "Twilight World", and "In the Days of Our Love".
Just before her 90th birthday, she composed and performed a symphonic piece, A Portrait of Rachel Carson to mark the centennial of the environmental pioneer.
She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2010 New Year Honours.
Musical style
McPartland's encyclopedic knowledge of jazz standards, highly musical ear, involvement in over 60 years of evolving jazz styles, and rich experience blending with radio guests has led to a musical style that has been described as: "flexible and complex, and almost impossible to pigeonhole". She is known as a harmonically and rhythmically complex and inventive improviser: "She was never content to be in one place, and always kept improving. She has great ears and great harmonics. Because of her ear, she can go into two or three different keys in a tune and shift with no problem."
She also is a synesthete, associating different musical keys with colors, stating that: "The key of D is daffodil yellow, B major is maroon, and B flat is blue".
