Marian McPartland

Marian McPartland (born March 20, 1918, Slough, England—died August 20, 2013, Port Washington, New York, U.S.) was an English-born American jazz musician and radio personality, best known in the United States for her National Public Radio program Piano Jazz.

McPartland began playing the piano when she was three years old. She attended private schools and studied classical music at the Guildhall School of Music in London. In 1938 she horrified her conservative parents by joining a touring piano quartet that played popular music. During World War II she volunteered for ENSA (Entertainments National Service Association), England’s equivalent of the American USO (United Service Organizations). While serving as a USO entertainer for Allied troops on the European continent she lived in tents, dodged German bullets, and met and married an American jazz cornetist, Jimmy McPartland. After the war the couple moved to the U.S., and she became the pianist in his Dixieland band. Soon, however, the siren sounds of bebop and cool jazz lured her toward more modern styles. By 1950 she was leading her own trio; in 1952 she began what would become a nearly 10-year engagement at New York City’s Hickory House nightclub. She was a favourite in concerts and elegant nightclubs from then on. Although she divorced her husband, they remained friends and remarried decades later, just weeks before his death in 1991.

Besides touring the world as a performer, McPartland was a prominent jazz promoter. Starting in 1956 and for most of her career, she taught jazz in American grade schools, high schools, and colleges. She once stated, “I couldn’t fight rock and roll but I wanted kids to know there’s another music.” In the 1970s she ran her own record label, Halcyon, which issued albums by noted jazz pianists.

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Her first Piano Jazz show was broadcast in April 1979. For an hour each week, two jazz artists—McPartland and a guest—played duets and chatted about music. Part of the program’s appeal was McPartland’s own playing: she had a famously huge repertoire of jazz and popular songs, and she was a fluent, basically romantic improviser who adapted readily to many different styles. Her guests included a veritable who’s who of jazz—from swing-band stars to avant-gardists—and even the occasional pop singer. Her first guest was Mary Lou Williams, whom she called “my role model forever.” Soon McPartland began inviting nonpianists too, such as trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie and Roy Eldridge, saxophonists Branford Marsalis and Benny Carter, and singers Rosemary Clooney and Willie Nelson. Her hundreds of guests also included top-notch but little-known artists, such as a Kyrgyzstan-born teenaged pianist from Kansas City, Kansas, named Eldar Djangirov. McPartland’s warmth and versatility made Piano Jazz the longest-running jazz program on National Public Radio and one of the longest-running network jazz shows in history. In 2010, shortly after the program celebrated its 30th year on the air, the 92-year-old McPartland hosted her final episode.

Ever the generous jazz advocate, McPartland also found time to write occasional articles about her favourite jazz musicians; they were collected in her 1987 book Marian McPartland’s Jazz World: All in Good Time.