I
woke up to the news this morning that Marian McPartland had passed away at her
home in Long Island, New York. She was
95. Marian
was no doubt one of my biggest music inspirations, and I will always remember
with the highest regard the first time I heard her show, and then, many years
later, the first (and only) time I was fortunate enough to see her play.
Although
I am a huge fan today, I did not grow up listening to jazz, and much of my
exposure to the genre did not come until my late teens when I began to explore
music beyond the rock and folk I grew up with.
Around this same time, during my first summer home from being away at
college, I heard Marian’s Piano Jazz,
and through the show I was educated and introduced to many new artists. With her comforting British accent, Marian
talked to her guests like they were old friends catching up on lost
conversation. And in large part, these were in fact long-time friends of
hers. The guests and her swapped stories
about shows played at The Hickory House, where Marian enjoyed a long standing
residency from 1952 to 1960, and gave us listeners a taste of what it was like
to live and play in an era where thriving jazz clubs scattered the streets of
New York City. This intimacy set Piano Jazz apart from any other show I’d
heard before. It was like listening to
my grandmother telling stories from her youth, if my grandmother grew up alongside
the likes of Dizzy, Mingus, and Monk, instead of on a Midwest farm. I fell in love with it all. “Shall we play that one together?” she would
say to her guest. And so began the music
that was beloved by her many listeners and fans for decades on end.
I
saw Marian play at Yoshi’s, a jazz club in Oakland, California, in 2007. It was shortly after she turned 89, but you
would not have a sense of her age by the way she played. Though she used a walker to help her get
around onstage, she led her trio through two solid sets of her own compositions
and jazz standards. She didn’t miss a
beat. I was obviously thrilled to be
seeing one of my heroes, and throughout the night, kept thinking to myself, “Damn,
if we could all be so lucky—to not only be alive and in good health at 89, but
to be leading a band of men half her age with such strength and grace.” What a gal, that Marian McPartland.
In
recent years (through the help of her grandchildren), Marian maintained an
active presence on Facebook. She posted
many pictures and videos of her peers, and fortunate for us, used it as a way
to communicate with her fans. I shared
this blog with her, particularly the posts in which she was highlighted in the
entries about women and jazz music. I am
happy to say that she read them, and replied to me that she enjoyed them. I am grateful for her many years as a
dedicated host, and for all of the knowledge of jazz she imparted on me and
other listeners. And thankfully, in the
digital age we live in, there are hours upon hours of archived shows available for
us to listen to. She may be gone, but
her music lives on.
