When
I caught up with Marian McPartland by telephone last week she was in the middle
of taping a new season of Piano Jazz,
her long-running National Public Radio show. McPartland may be in her mid-80s,
but the perennial hipster has recently released CDs with Bruce Hornsby, Elvis
Costello, and Steely Dan.
She’s
busier than ever, but McPartland will make time in her schedule to visit Rochester next Wednesday for a concert honoring a
cherished friend, the late Rayburn Wright.
Known
for his big band and studio orchestra arrangement for RadioCityMusic Hall, Wright began offering jazz classes at
the Eastman School of Music in the 1950s. He started Eastman’s jazz program in
1970 and initiated McPartland’s special relationship with the school when he
invited her to an Arranger’s Holiday concert in 1971.
When
Wright died in 1990, McPartland and others started a fund in his name to
encourage jazz at Eastman. Concert proceeds will go to the fund.
Born
in England in 1918, McPartland might seem an
unlikely candidate for a jazz luminary, but she insists it was natural.
“Europeans care more about jazz than they do
here,” McPartland says. “I always listened to jazz on the BBC. I had a
boyfriend who brought me all kinds of records: Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman…
There were so many people I wanted to meet when I came over here.”
Despite
critic Leonard Feather’s pronouncement that ‘she’ll never make it, she’s
English, white and a woman,’ McPartland forged a career and met just about
every musician she admired. She developed a distinctive piano style,
acknowledging the influence of Ellington, Teddy Wilson, Bud Powell, and Bill
Evans.
Concord
Records has steadily released Piano Jazz shows on CD, each one offering brilliant solos and duets, and invaluable oral
history. On recent releases McPartland breaks down walls between musical genres
with guests like rockers Walter Becker and Donald Fagen.
“I love Steely Dan,” says McPartland. “Their
lyrics and their ideas are so clever and they love jazz. They were fascinated
with Duke Ellington. They thought I was some kind of supernatural being because
I knew Duke.”
Similar
jazz roots emerged on shows featuring Hornsby, a Bud Powell fan, and Costello,
a surprisingly strong standard interpreter. (Check out “The Very Thought of
You.”)
Highlights
of every program include McPartland’s impromptu performances with her guests.
On a show recorded with Wilson in 1978 she asks him for a random
musical phrase and proceeds to weave it into a beautiful improvisation. Even
the intricate theme of Piano Jazz was
composed on the spot.
“We were doing the show in the Baldwin
Showroom,” she says. “We didn’t have much money. The producer said we have to
have a theme. I was about to record a show with Bill Evans; I felt very nervous
to have him sitting there. The producer said ‘just write something nervous,
like people talking’ and I came up with that in a minute.”
McPartland’s
undiminished spirit of adventure should play a large role in Wednesday’s
concert. She’ll play piano duets with former Wright student Ellen Rowe and
Eastman faculty members Tony Caramia, Bill Dobbins, and Harold Danko. She’ll
join Jeff Campbell (bass) and Rich Thompson (drums) in a trio and play Wright’s
arrangements of From this Moment On and other tunes with the Eastman Jazz Ensemble.
Marian
McPartland Celebrates Rayburn Wright Wednesday, February 1, in Kilbourn Hall, 26 Gibbs Street, at 8 p.m. $20, $27, and $35. Gold Circle tickets
(including prime seating and limited edition live concert CD): $75. Tickets
available at the RPO Box Office (108 East Avenue), 454-2100,
www.esm.rochester.edu/concerts, and Wegmans Video Depts.
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This article appears in Jan 25-31, 2006.
