1950-1951
Marian McPartland moved out of the traditionalist style she played with her
husband’s Chicago band, and her first American gig out on her own was
at the St. Charles Hotel in St. Charles, Illinois. After a trip to England in
1949, Jimmy and Marian McPartland decided to make the move to New York and left
Chicago. On the way to New York, they played a date at the Rendezvous Club in Philadelphia,
owned by Lee Guber. Later, they went to Boston to make four sides for their record label,
Unison, with Boston musicians Vic Dickenson on trombone, Gene ‘Honeybear’
Cedric on clarinet, Max Wayne on bass, and Bob Varney on drums. These sides
were also released on the Prestige label (McPartland, 1972).
A crucial part of Marian’s
transition into leading her own trios in New York in the 1950s was an opportunity
to work in Boston for impresario George Wein:
I worked for George Wein at the first Storyville before he ever
had the Newport Jazz Festival. Jimmy and I were in a house band in Boston at
this hotel, called the Buckminster Hotel, in Kenmore Square. George had the
hotel and in the basement was a jazz club. That’s where I remember meeting
Dave Brubeck and Ella Fitzgerald. I had met Sarah Vaughan in Chicago and Dizzy
Gillespie and so on. All of this was feeding into the computer, me! This is
how I learned to play. In those days there was no jazz education (McPartland to Shaw, 1979: 697-698).
Marian recalls that other musicians would say things like, ‘Don’t
play that chord. That’s not the right chord. Don’t play so much
in the bass. Play more like Count Basie because you’re getting in my way.
Don’t play down in there where the bass player is playing because you’ve
covering up his notes.’ This was jazz education from other musicians,
on-the-job training, which was an indication of other musicians’ willingness to show Marian the ropes. She used this period to practice,
to put arrangements together for the group, and to learn newly popular tunes
like ‘How High The Moon’, a bebop favourite, and Billy Strayhorn’s
‘Lush Life’, first made famous by Nat King Cole (McPartland to Shaw, 1979: 698-699).
Using her keen
ear, Marian had assimilated and mastered hundreds of tunes from different eras
without seeing any music. Tapping into what was going on musically at the time,
Marian stayed current with new developments. She was also building the foundation
for her niche in jazz with a good repertoire of standards and continually aiming
for a fresh approach to each interpretation. Her musical curiosity was piqued
by every musician she heard. She recalled being at Charles
Delauney's home in Paris with Jimmy McPartland and Django Reinhardt when she first heard trumpeter
Dizzy Gillespie play the tune ‘Hot House’. She was fascinated watching
the pianist, thinking, ‘Gee, what’s that piano doing? What are those
chords?’:
I just listened and learned. Then I’d sit down and watch
someone comping, like Roy Kral comping behind Charlie Ventura. That’s
how I learned to comp, just watching and listening to records and other people
– Lennie Tristano and George Shearing for two (McPartland to Shaw, 1979: 708).
Eager as Marian McPartland was, very few piano players would share their secrets, so she
worked out how other pianists constructed their improvisations by listening
to tapes and records and experimenting, and also by listening to horn players
as well as other piano players. When Marian was ready to take on
the toughest of all jazz cities, New York, Jimmy used his influence and convinced a club owner to book the Marian McPartland Trio. Leading this group of piano, double bass and drums afforded Marian McPartland a status among other New York pianists with small groups, and she began to find an individual style as leader of a trio in a venue promoting top quality jazz:
Jimmy really helped me with everything. If it wasn’t for
Jimmy – he knew everybody, and he made everything very easy. I did get
the groups. I don’t know if they had wanted to work with me, but I was
the leader, so I could call up anybody I wanted. It wasn’t like trying
to get hired with someone else’s group. I either worked with Jimmy, which
was fine, but when I started with my own group, I was so green. I couldn’t
say a word over the microphone. I was so tongue-tied, I had to write what I
wanted to say on a piece of paper. Even if it was only, ‘Thank you very
much. `And now I’d like to introduce Eddie Heywood’ or something
like that. I couldn’t seem to get it out. Whereas now, you can’t
ever shut me up (Hansson, Interview of Marian McPartland, November 2, 1999).
In 1951, Marian McPartland opened at the brand new club The Embers, the smartest place in
town using jazz talent, with Eddie Safranski on bass and Don Lamond on drums,
her rhythm section from George Wein’s Storyville Club. The owner of the
club, Ralph Watkins, realizing that Marian was not yet well known, brought in
big name players saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, trumpeter Roy Eldridge, and vibraphonist
Terry Gibbs as guest artists, the idea being that they would play with pianist
Eddie Heywood, who was working opposite Marian McPartland. But Heywood declined,
and Marian was launched into accompanying the jazz greats. She was so nervous
she had to write down what she was supposed to say at the end of each set (Hansson, Interview of Marian McPartland, November 2, 1999).
Gradually gaining in confidence, she soon established herself in a trio setting
by tuning in to the heady interplay of piano, double bass and drums, always
searching for new ideas and trying to maintain a strong and swinging feel. Speaking
of The Embers gig much later, she said, ‘I started out doing something
I really wasn’t ready for, not having gone through the intermediate stages’
(Lyons, 1976: 9).
Marian McPartland also told writer Len Lyons
in 1983:
In a way I feel bad about not going through an apprenticeship,
as most musicians do, playing with different bands and working with different
leaders. I haven't worked for anybody except Jimmy and Benny Goodman, the latter
for only six months (Lyons, 1983: 170).
In his DownBeat column ‘Girls in Jazz’, critic Leonard
Feather wrote a feature article in 1951 on Marian and Jimmy McPartland, making much
of the unique matrimonial status of Dixieland vs. Bop. To set the record straight
on an oft-quoted prediction by Feather about the 'three strikes' limiting Marian’s chances of success
in New York, these were his exact words:
From the standpoint of a French fan, Marian McPartland might very
easily be voted ‘the musician we’d least like to accept as a jazz
artist'. She is English, white and a girl – three hopeless strikes
against her from the Gallic angle (Feather, 1951: 13).
In the parlance of the time, Feather described Marian as a ‘tall, laughing
chick with the happy disposition and the happy husband. And by the way, if you
want to dig the McPartland pair on wax, there are those dates they made together
on Prestige…they’re about the only examples extant of east meeting
west on wax’ (Feather, 1951: 13).
Marian McPartland herself (using the byline Marian Page) wrote
an article for Melody Maker in 1951 headed ‘Dixieland Can Marry
Bop'! In her opinion:
It always amuses me to hear people marveling at my marriage
to Jimmy because of the difference in our musical styles. In the first place,
I don’t consider myself just a bop pianist any more than he considers
himself simply a Dixieland trumpet player. Certainly my background didn’t
equip me for any kind of jazz, bop or otherwise…I think people make a
big mistake by putting musicians in a pigeonhole (Page, 1951: 2).
Also using the name 'Marian Page', she had written another article for DownBeat magazine in 1950 on the subject of 'putting musicians in a pigeonhole':
One of the favorite queries of the American jazz fan, upon hearing I'm English, is, 'Where did you learn to play jazz? Not in England, surely?' The raised eyebrow and the derisive smile is the average American opinion of jazz in England (Page, 1950).
Marian also argued strongly in this article against union restrictions preventing America's best musicians from being heard in Britain. This situation arose after America allegedly refused to allow English bands to perform in their country, and it had assumed the proportions of an international problem. Marian claimed that there was little hope for the advancement of jazz in Britain if those conditions prevailed:
Why can't it be possible to have an exchange of bands between countries? So much has been said on the subject, but nary a move has been made. Musicians here want to go to Europe - musicians over there are longing to visit America. But it takes more than words, we need action (Page, 1950).
The Hickory House Years (1952-1960)
Before Marian McPartland opened at the Hickory House on 144 West 52nd Street
on February 2, 1952, she took Feather’s stylistic pigeon-holing as a compliment that
she was special and different because of her background, her race, and her gender.
It appears that Feather's 1951 review related to Marian's performance at The
Embers, and that he also reviewed her some time after she was already ensconced
at the Hickory House. Marian later recalled that she did not take the 'three
strikes' comment to heart:
When I started my long-term engagement at the Hickory House,
one of the first reviews I had was from Leonard Feather. It followed Leonard around
all his life. He said, ‘Oh, she has three strikes against her. She’s
English, white and a woman.’ Leonard was sort of embarrassed and he would
say, ‘Well, I was really only kidding.’ I said, ‘No, I don’t
think you were kidding.’ But it never bothered me. Actually, I was pleased
to be written about, and I just sort of took it as an accolade. I just was somebody
who kind of went barging ahead no matter what (Enstice and Stockhouse, 2004:
243).
The Hickory House, with its high ceilings, oval bar, small bandstand, racetrack
atmosphere and steakhouse menu, was owned by the Popkin family, and John Popkin
preferred small, quiet groups, often led by women such as German-born Jutta
Hipp, Trinidadian Hazel Scott, and Manchurian-born Toshiko Akiyoshi:
It was the kind of room that didn’t seem like a jazz room…A
very big space with huge hunting and boxing prints on the wall and marvelous
food. It was really noisy, but we established a rapport with the people sitting
at the bar, who were the real listeners (Blumenthal, 2000).
Agent Larry Bennett, of Associated Booking Corporation, told Marian that
with luck their engagement would last two months, yet Marian served as the
house pianist on the Steinway for around eight years. The Marian McPartland Trio
opened with Max Wayne on bass and Mel Zelnick on drums, to be replaced within
a few weeks by drummer Mousie Alexander. These two musicians had worked with
Marian and Jimmy in Chicago, so Marian felt right at home. In 1953, Bob Carter
replaced Wayne on bass, and Marian hired Joe Morello in Alexander’s place.
They were playing acoustically amid the clatter and bustle of a noisy bar and
restaurant, where waiters slithered over the sawdust-covered floors and undergraduates
crowded along the bar. However, during the time Marian presided over the oval
bar, she attracted a procession of jazz luminaries:
The trio played in half-hour shifts six nights a week from 9
pm to 3 am – including Christmas and New Year’s Eve – entertaining
a generation of musicians, composers and performers of American Popular Song:
Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Alec Wilder, Cy Coleman and Billy
Strayhorn were all regular visitors, along with pianist Bud Powell, guitarist
Bucky Pizzarelli and drummer Kenny Clarke. Oscar Peterson sat in occasionally
– and from time to time, Ellington himself (Stewart, 1999).
The club was a favorite hangout of Duke Ellington, as his press agent Joe Morgen also did publicity for the Hickory House. Morgen assured Ellington that he would always be welcome, the food was good, and he would be guaranteed privacy. Ellington would appear three or four times a week, surrounded by his entourage. His usual table was set aside for him. He smiled and nodded at his admiring public, and caught up on jazz news from other Hickory House regulars.
Marian McPartland is quoted as saying, 'The focus of attention immediately shifted from [the performer] to Ellington' (Hajdu, 1996: 166). When Marian McPartland was in residency in the oval bar, she often delighted Duke by playing 'Love You Madly'. At the instigation of Joe Morgen, who had a reputation for gracelessness and aggression, she learned the rarely played 'Clothed Woman' from the sheet music, a tribute by Ellington to pianist Willie 'The Lion' Smith. Marian remembered:
I finally learned it, and believe me, it's not an easy one - it's full of all sorts of notes that seem like they're wrong, but somehow or other, they work - and then one night Duke came in and I played it. He was delighted. He said, 'How nice, I don't even play that one anymore. I'd almost forgotten it' (O'Haire, 1974) © New York Daily News, L.P. Reprinted with Permission
On rare occasions Marian persuaded Duke Ellington to sit in, when he might play a little-known composition of his such as 'Soda Fountain Rag' or 'Night Creature'. Whenever Marian hears Savoy tracks on the radio, she recalls the Hickory House scene:
Benny Goodman stood at the bar once in a while, and Artie Shaw came by a couple of times. Barbara Carroll took time off from her classy gig at The Embers to listen to us, and Cy Coleman stopped in often during his stint at The Mermaid Room just up the street. Oscar Peterson sat in, and so did many other players, all of whom were unknowingly contributing to my musical development. Among them were pianist Bud Powell, who often played at Birdland, drummer Kenny Clarke, bassists Wilbur Ware and Oscar Pettiford, and guitarists Bucky Pizzarelli and Sal Salvador (McPartland, 2003: 24).
Composer Billy Strayhorn occupied a permanent place at the bar, and was always
complimentary about the trio’s interpretations of his song ‘Lush
Life’ (McPartland, 2003: 24). Describing the scene, critic Nat Hentoff wrote:
One of the difficult challenges for a trio is the raised stand
right in the middle of an oval bar. If the music is to cut through the talk
and the clanking beer bottles, the trio must be able to really communicate musically.
And that’s just what Marian McPartland and her men do. Strength could
be called the keynote of the McPartland style. As charming as her conception
is, she builds with the heart of a stomper (Hentoff, 1954).
Bassist Bob Carter left the trio, and Vinnie Burke took over the bass chair.
When the nightclub Birdland opened, Marian and her sidemen were ever curious
to assimilate the jazz sounds going on around them:
I was just listening to everything I could, running over to
Birdland between sets every night to hear people like Duke and Basie and Bud
Powell. But I was also listening to the cocktail pianists in the neighbourhood,
people like Cy Coleman and Barbara Carroll…Later on, I would go down to
The Five Spot where Monk was playing. My goal was to hear everything, and to
play a lot of musicians’ tunes. Duke and Strayhorn compositions –
there’s a harmonic richness for you – and Dizzy’s as well.
Mary Lou [Williams] showed up once or twice and I was listening to her intently.
I was also trying to learn John Lewis tunes, and whenever Oscar Pettiford sat
it I would learn one of his (Blumenthal, 2000).
The trio often checked out who was appearing at Basin Street West, in the basement
of the old Roseland building. They heard the great bands of Ellington, Kenton,
Basie and Herman, small groups led by Dizzy Gillespie or Stan Getz, and singers
like Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington and June Christie. However,
the first time Marian played at Birdland she encountered a group of black musicians
she had never met before. She sensed their displeasure at having an unknown
white female pianist on the bandstand, they left her in ignorance of tunes and
tempos, and kept their backs turned to her throughout the set (McPartland, 2003: 7).
This disregard made Marian appreciate the musical relationship with her
own sidemen even more, and she seized opportunities to record them, and to broadcast
from the Hickory House:
All kinds of good things happened to me while I was there. Garry
Moore came in to hear the trio, and as a result I was booked on his NBC Morning
Show for several weeks. I had my own radio show on WNEW every evening,
and my trio was also heard via remotes on NBC. Duke Ellington was a frequent
visitor – he was a client of Joe Morgen who handled the publicity for
the Hickory House. Once in a while I would persuade him to sit in with the trio,
and later I appeared on a television show with the Ellington Band. Stories appeared
about the trio in Newsweek and Time through Joe Morgen’s
efforts. Birdland came into existence while I was at the Hickory House…and
I became friendly with Steve Allen, [who] occasionally sat in with the trio,
too, and I made a lot of guest appearances on his night time television show
(McPartland to A. Shaw, 1971: 163-164).
Remote broadcasts gave the trio wider success, with three nights a week on
WOR radio in New York. Marian recalls ‘an emcee who would come in and
make these fast-paced, theatrical and hysterically show-bizzy introductions.
After that, we had a half-hour on NBC radio that went all over the country.
It made us tremendously popular with song pluggers, who would come around with
tunes that I basically did not want to play. We had all of the good tunes under
our belts already’ (Blumenthal, 2000).
Marian’s experience as a radio host began during the 1950s, and she became
known for her regular evening appearances on what was then WNEW during a 15-minute
radio show featuring Al (‘Jazzbo’) Collins, playing piano and talking
about music (Stewart, 1999). The remote broadcasts led to demands for the
trio to perform in other parts of the country. As a result, manager Joe Glaser
would book them for on-the-road gigs, and they would travel for two or three
months. The exposure given to the Marian McPartland Trio through remote broadcasts
was extremely valuable in making listeners familiar with their work:
We would leave there [the Hickory House] and go on the road and
everybody would know us. And then I got a contract with Capitol Records. Then
there was a lot of TV in New York. The very first TV show had Steve Allen; then
there were the TV shows of Patti Page and Kate Smith, and we were on all of
these shows as well as being at the Hickory House (Hansson, Interview of Marian McPartland, November
2, 1999).
Vinnie Burke could be volatile and often had an unsettling effect on the group,
so in 1954 bassist Bill Crow, who had met Marian when he was on tour with vibraphone
player Terry Gibbs, took over the bass chair as the perfect complement to drummer
Joe Morello (McPartland, 2003: 27). That particular trio put down several recordings,
and in 1955 the Marian McPartland Trio was named in the Metronome Yearbook
as Small Group of the Year. As George Simon was editor of Metronome Magazine in 1955, it is assumed that he was the author of the following testimonial, and it is reproduced in its entirety.
Last year was a pianist’s year. All sorts of keyboard artists,
from Liberace up, were to be heard across the United States and Europe in 1954,
an astonishing number of them commanding excellence. High on anybody’s
list of pianists last year, as for several years before, was Marian McPartland,
distinguished for the range of her musical interests, and the deftness with
which she put together all sorts of songs and tempos and moods to make up those
long and appealing sets in the middle of the Hickory House bar on West 52nd
Street in New York City.
Marian’s skills are far more than those of a superior pianist: the least
attentive listener to her trio performances must realize that what is so pleasing
about this group is its balance of piano, bass and drums, with Marian’s
every taste echoed and developed by her colleagues, who react to her moods and
fancies with the sensitivity of the mimosa leaf.
Joe Morello’s drumming is a wonder [sic] fit to match Marian’s
playing: he is capable of a variety of sounds, and of styles, and of musical
ideas, any of which – sounds or styles or ideas – would do honor
to a musician blowing a horn or fingering a keyboard or frets.
Bill Crow’s bass-playing is of a piece with Joe’s work and Marian’s.
This multi-faceted musician – he has worked professionally as trombonist,
bongoist and singer – rounds out one of the most generously rounded of
small groups, a musical circle of distinction all by itself (Simon, 1955).
A review of a recording made by the trio from the editor of Metronome Magazine is illuminating:
Marian McPartland, with her exceptionally fine trio, has managed to express herself in a modern manner that appeals just as much to the emotions as it does to the intellect. Marian’s attributes are many. She plays a ballad with immense
feeling, leisurely, sympathetically, intimately, with the authority that comes
only from a well-trained musician. What is especially striking about her playing
is her extraordinary range of dynamics, a quality seldom exploited by jazz musicians,
but used with charm and intelligence by Marian. As for her jazz, here again
the dynamics are apparent, as she weaves through modern ideas, at times with
a full, strong beat, at other times with a dainty, jumping touch.
In back of her are two excellent musicians. Joe Morello is in many ways the
most exciting drummer to appear in a long time. Gifted with an amazing touch
and two of the loosest wrists in captivity, he plays brilliant, light, tasty
brushes behind Marian on ballads and on many up tempo bits, and yet, when the
occasion demands, explodes authoritatively with his sticks. As for Bill Crow,
he, too, is outstanding. Like his compatriots, he has great technique that permits
him to play interesting changes at truly fast tempos. In addition, he is one
of those rare bassists who plays evenly up and down the range of the instrument – his low notes don’t boom, his high notes don’t sound thin
and too short. And he swings!
Here then is a great trio, a modern trio with taste, imagination, and with a
beat. Add to this Marian’s innate charm, and you have one of the most
attractive organizations in the history of jazz (Simon, 1955).
Bill Crow and Joe Morello are first-rate musicians, still recording and performing with Marian McPartland. Joe Morello was selected
as the New Star drummer in the 1956 International DownBeat Critics’
Poll. Bill Crow has published a book of reminiscences of his life in jazz, including
recollections of his years with Marian McPartland at the Hickory House (Crow, 1992).
However,
another string to his bow was the ingenious lighting set-up he devised for the
Hickory House trio, where lighting effects and the musical beat were in perfect
synchronization in fast numbers, and ballads were highlighted by changing colors
for each soloist. The trio kept the lighting in the act, even when on the road.
Critic Nat Hentoff has described it thus:
The variegated Marian McPartland trio is, then, an unusual unit – musically,
personally, and in terms of its imaginative showmanship. And through each set
of the evening, the forceful but sensitive musical personality of the young
English girl – whose family did what they could to turn her away from
jazz and from the piano – shines through even the colored lights (Hentoff, 1956).
On September 5, 1957, Marian McPartland’s photograph appeared on the
cover of DownBeat magazine. A recording from this period has been
re-released on Savoy Jazz – Marian McPartland: On 52nd Street - a mix
of five studio tracks with Bob Carter on bass, and twelve tracks with Vinnie
Burke on bass, recorded live by the legendary sound engineer Rudy Van Gelder
in October 1953.
Although there were changes of personnel over the years, Marian
McPartland and her jazz trio had arrived on 52nd Street and on the
New York jazz scene, and that alliance continues into the 21st century. Interviewed
during one Hickory House performance, Duke Ellington had
the final word, ‘Music is an aural art. It doesn’t matter if it’s
a symphony or bebop or it’s a man or a woman playing. If it’s good
it’s good, and Miss McPartland is wonderful’ (Newsweek, n.d.).
Novelist John O'Hara observed:
A couple of years ago I was working late at night, writing a
novel, in fact, and I decided to take ten. Turned on the radio to a disc jockey
and heard Something New: a beautiful, beautiful piano, and played by a woman.
I am on record as a great believer in women, but not as jazz piano players.
This one, however, was Marian McPartland playing ‘Strike Up The Band’.
These many nights later I finally got around to putting in a personal appearance
at the Hickory House, the chapel where she now holds forth. Catch her there
if you are in New York and interested (Hentoff, 1965).
Hentoff also quoted from critical opinions published in two of New York's leading magazines. In The New Yorker, Douglas Watt lauded Marian McPartland’s ‘splendid,
precise technique…Her playing has a sort of cheerful composure about it
that seems to me very nearly unique among jazz pianists. There is such grace
and joy in every phrase she turns that her work, although far from superficial,
looks delightfully easy.' Time magazine also declared that Marian McPartland's brand of jazz was
‘some of the cleanest, most inventive "progressive" jazz to
be heard anywhere’ (Hentoff, 1965).
Both Marian McPartland and Bill Crow have fond recollections of Hickory House
boss John Popkin, who insisted on lighting the meat display more than the band.
Marian recalled getting along well with Popkin, although he always downplayed
the band’s drawing power to fend off a request for a raise:
‘I felt we deserved a raise now and then,’ Marian observed, ‘especially
given the number of years we’d been playing there. But that was always
a delicate issue to bring up with Mr. Popkin. The place would be packed and,
occasionally, I’d drop a hint to him, something like: “Gee, looks
like a nice crowd out there.” “Yeah,” he’d say –
“but they’re all drinking beers”' (Concord Press Release).
Before the end of the decade, Bill Crow had joined saxophonist Gerry Mulligan’s
group, and Joe Morello had been signed up by Dave Brubeck. In 1997, Marian was quoted as saying,
‘I told Dave I thought he really liked the trio, and all the time he was
plotting to steal my drummer. But he couldn’t have done all the things
he did, all those odd time signatures, without Joe, and he admits it’
(Kanzler, 1997: 9).
Marian recalled in 2004 how the poaching of her resident drummer occurred. Brubeck and Desmond were working at the nearby Basin Street Club, and sometimes the trio would run over between sets to hear them. Whenever the two men visited the Hickory House, Marian thought they were there to hear the trio, but she realized later that they were really listening to Joe Morello. While Marian was abroad in England, Joe made the break and the commitment to play with Dave Brubeck:
Actually, he had more dates to do with me after I came back, but by that time he had made the commitment to Dave, which I had to go along with because Joe was great. It really was time for him to join a bigger group than mine. Whereas playing with Dave got him involved with all these different time signatures (Enstice and Stockhouse, 2004: 240).
According to fellow pianist, Dr. Billy Taylor:
Marian McPartland's tenancy changed the famous jazz steakery from a Dixieland room to a showcase for piano trios. Even though I worked there steadily for five years, I didn't break her record.What made 52nd Street was not just the number of music clubs, but the variety of the music you could hear and the interchange between musicians (Taylor to A. Shaw, 1971: 173).
Taylor also referred to two blocks of 52nd Street in its heyday as a complete history of jazz - from the time it began to the emerging of bebop. The Marian McPartland Trio held tenure in the Hickory House for eight years, the longest run of any group in the club's history. Marian McPartland recalls being in the Hickory House on the last night before the place was sold and torn down:
Billy Taylor was on the bandstand, and he invited me to sit in,
but I felt so sad that I just couldn’t play. I knew that with this room
went almost forty years of jazz history. I never went back, and I’ve never
been in the new place. I don’t think I could stand it. And now Mr. Popkin
is gone, too, and with him some wonderful memories and wonderful music. It’s
hardly surprising that the Hickory House was like home to him. At times it was
like a home for me too. I’ll always think of it with great nostalgia.
There has never been another place like it, and there never will be (McPartland
in A. Shaw, 1971: 169).
As a pianist already adept at running her own career, Marian McPartland learned the
value of good publicity. The New York Times critic, John S. Wilson, was
one of the most influential jazz critics of the time. From his obituary come
the words:
John S. Wilson, jazz critic, was born in 1913 and died on August
27, 2002. From the time he joined The New York Times as its first popular music
critic in 1952 until his retirement in 1994, John S. Wilson was one of the most
influential of all writers about jazz. He was knowledgeable about most areas
of Manhattan’s popular music. Wilson had also briefly worked as a sports
writer, and edited a services paper during World War II. But jazz was his main
interest, and his abiding love was the swing era music with which he grew up.
Of his hundreds of short essays on jazz, none epitomizes the
elegance of his style and his enthusiasm better than his portrait of Fats Waller
in Robert Gottlieb’s 1997 anthology Reading Jazz. Wilson grew
up in New York (Obituary, 2002).
In a letter to John S. Wilson during the Hickory House days, Marian McPartland
wrote:
I want to thank you for the wonderful review in The Times
last week. It certainly was a big thrill to have so many people come to the
Hickory House and tell me about it – also the one in High Fidelity.
You are very kind! I do hope you will come over to the Hickory House one night
when you are not too busy, so that I may thank you in person.
Regards from Jimmy and myself,
(Signed) Marian McPartland 1957 (Personal Correspondence)
After leaving the Hickory House, Marian worked at a dinner theatre club called
The Strollers, often with Jimmy McPartland joining her. At that time, Eddie
Gomez was her bass player. She also found another niche at The Composer Room
on 58th Street playing opposite Mary Lou Williams. Looking back on that decade
of leading her trio, Marian McPartland made the statement:
If I go down the list of drummers and bass players, it seems like
I’ve had everybody. I should write a book Bass Players And Drummers
I Have Known! (Hansson, Interview of Marian McPartland, November 2, 1999).
1957
In May 1957, scriptwriter John McPartland sold CBS-TV two teleplays for live video
showing in the fall. One was Party For The Kids originally published
in Esquire in 1955. The other was based on the lives of jazz trumpeter Jimmy
McPartland and progressive pianist Marian McPartland, neither of whom are related
to John McPartland (Press Clipping, 1958)
Two articles on Marian McPartland by Dom Cerulli highlighted
her position as a woman in jazz in 1957. The titles of these articles are: ‘Meet Maid Marian’
(September 5) and ‘Marian McP: What’s It Like To Be A Woman In Man’s
Jazz World’ (September 19). The first article was headed Cover Story,
and Marian McPartland’s photograph appeared on the cover of the September 5,
1957, issue of DownBeat Magazine. The article described how Margaret Turner had
thrown off her British mask and become a more relaxed, daring Marian McPartland.
She spoke frankly of her love for jazz writing and composing, and how Jimmy
encouraged her to take her song-writing abilities seriously. She revealed that
she and Jimmy had an ambition to host a radio format together, utilizing Jimmy’s
good broadcasting voice (Cerulli, 1957: 32).
The second article showed Marian, pictured with fellow-countryman
George Shearing, to be in an unusual position in jazz. It was claimed that she and pianist
Barbara Carroll were at that time the two most popular women group leaders in
jazz, and that Mary Lou Williams after a break of five years was scheduled to open
opposite Marian at The Composer in August 1957.
When interviewed for this thesis, Barbara Carroll was of the opinion that back in the 1950s, 'most people judged you as not being able to play jazz before they even heard you - just because you were female.' However, through 'lots of determination, plus constant listening and absorbing and improving' she, like Marian McPartland, forged a pattern of career growth in jazz as a trio leader or inventive soloist (Hansson, Written Interview of Barbara Carroll, November 19, 1999).
When Cerulli asked about her musical preferences, Marian McPartland spoke of enjoying the freedom of trio playing, but that she would consider expanding her group with a horn. When playing with her husband's group, she said she edits her playing down to leaner dimensions by thinking of Count Basie. When asked about television, she stated that she enjoyed her experience on the TV show Look Up And Live because of the care taken in rehearsal and in setting up lights and camera angles.
On the subject of modern piano, her view was that 'the newer crop of piano players are rather preoccupied with time, rhythm patterns, and percussive sounds. They're not playing all the piano, just a certain area of it.' She indicated a preference for beautiful harmony with a delicate touch, and an exploration of all twelve keys rather than playing in the keys of C, F, and G. Asked about her own style, she replied that she would like to find an identifying style, but felt that she had been developing and improving musically. 'I'm changing as a person too,' she concluded (Cerulli, 1957: 18).
That Marian McPartland's style was an amalgam of all the pianists she had listened to was undeniable at that time, and one of these influences was Art Tatum. Tatum, appearing solo, and Joe Bushkin with his trio, had opened The Embers in 1951, the jazz room where Marian's career as leader of her trio was also launched the same year. Marian recalled that the first inkling she had of Art Tatum was his recording of Dvorak's 'Humoresque' which she heard when she was still in England. Then she saw some of his piano transcriptions, and they were unbelievable. She remembered that Tatum came to hear her trio unannounced once, and she found the experience daunting.
Art Tatum died in 1956. Marian McPartland later spoke of her influences, from pianists both black and white, during the 1950s:
When Duke Ellington was at Birdland, I would go over there between sets from the Hickory House, and he would ask me to sit in. Actually, he spent a lot of time at the Hickory House.Occasionally he would actually sit in with my group. Sometimes he would play at the Rainbow Grill, and I would get to sit in there as well. I also used to go down to the Half Note and play with Zoot Sims and his group (Enstice and Stockhouse, 2004: 240).
Marian and Jimmy McPartland continued to make infrequent appearances together when Marian had free time from the Hickory House, and they succeeded in bridging the musical gap between their styles on stage and on recordings. In March 1957, the McPartlands performed at the Theatrical Grill in one of their appearances together. 'The fact that Marian and Jimmy hit it off at all musically still excites comment in jazz circles. Marian is regarded as a leading exponent of the modern school and Jimmy as a doughty dispenser of Chicago-refined Dixieland.' However, two recording firms have issued their albums, and according to Jimmy, 'Playing together is a question of give and take, like anything else in married life' (Krawcheck, 1957).
In October 1957, the Marian McPartland Trio was billed opposite the Max Roach Quintet at the Troy Music Hall. A newspaper article stated, 'Miss McPartland, English-born, is one of the few women jazz piano artists to reach any stature not based upon the novelty idea of woman expressing basic jazz. Her style has been termed "strong and swinging at the keys"' (Press Clipping, 1957).
Jazz writer, Whitney Balliett, reviewing the Great South Bay Jazz Festival in July 1957, at Great River, Long Island, wrote:
Sunday afternoon was run through meditatively by the Marian McPartland
Trio, augmented by Bud Freeman, Vic Dickenson and Jimmy McPartland, and the
Miles Davis Quintet, which included Sonny Rollins and Paul Chambers, and which
included a languishing rendition by Davis, playing a tightly-muted trumpet,
of 'It Never Entered My Mind'; (Balliett, 2000: 31).
1958
After appearing with her trio at Baker’s Lounge, Detroit, Marian McPartland
performed on June 5, 1958, at the Emerald Ball in the Latin Quarter of that
city. The Ball was a fundraiser by the Detroit Osteopathic Women’s Club
to benefit retarded children and to provide scholarships. While in Detroit she
appeared on the Soupy Sales TV show, and on Ed Mackenzie’s Saturday Party.
Her next date was a week later in Fort Wayne, and then she planned to make an
album in New York with Jimmy for Epic Records, followed by the Newport Jazz
Festival and a six-week concert tour, including a stop in Detroit in the following
fall. Amongst that busy schedule, Marian McPartland hoped to fit in a visit
to her family in England, where she is always received enthusiastically as a
jazz musician (Jemison, 1958).
Melody Maker was eager to interview Marian McPartland during her 1958 visit,
and, ten years after she left England, she was asked to elaborate on the difference
between the British jazz scene and jazz in America. The headline read, ‘You
Need A Strong Stomach To Play In New York’, a misinterpretation of her
words that Marian found highly amusing. Marian defined the difference between
the two scenes as ‘a distinction between [British] slightly stiff performers
and America’s uninhibited, what-the-hell sort of players’ (Jones, 1958: 3).
On December 10, 1958, Marian McPartland appeared at the Hotel Sheraton-Gibson
in Cincinnati, Ohio. The Gibson Girl Lounge, complete with Gibson Girl-costumed
waitresses and a gay-nineties canopy over the grand piano, seemed to recreate
an era of gracious living suited to Marian’s ‘imaginative, delicate,
pirouetting, sailing, airborne jazz’ (Darack, 1958).
1959
In March 1959, Marian was interviewed for Cross Section, by the Chicago,
Illinois Bi-Weekly, and gave opinions on a variety of subjects including
Paris fashions, The New York Times, U.S. foreign Policy, Greenwich
Village, Record Company A & R Men, and Electronic Pianos. Asked for her
opinion on several jazz musicians, she claimed that, 'drummer Joe Morello
is the best drummer there is’ (Chicago, Illinois Bi-Weekly, March 19, 1959).
April 1959 saw Jimmy
McPartland and his Band opposite the Marian McPartland Trio in a concert billed
as ‘Hot Versus Cool’ at Child’s Paramount in New York. The
Marian McPartland Trio appeared in Oakland, California, on November 29, 1959,
and writer Russ Wilson focused on the issue of gender in a feature article.
He noted that Marian McPartland was placed 24th in the latest DownBeat poll
in a field of 30, and among those who trailed her were Stan Kenton, Duke Ellington,
Tommy Flanagan, Toshiko Akiyoshi and Ray Bryant. Marian insisted again that
she was still searching for a McPartland style as such, but Wilson maintained
that there is certainly a McPartland cult after her long residency at the Hickory
House (Wilson, 1959).
Jazz writer Ralph Gleason interviewed Marian McPartland for the ‘Rhythm Section’
of the Cleveland, Ohio Plain Dealer on December 20, 1959, an article
with the title ‘Gals Put Some Frills On Jazz Lead Sheets’.
Marian was quoted as saying:
Actually the world of jazz cannot be classified as a man’s
world…I don’t want a woman pianist who plays like a man at all.
I want a woman pianist who plays like a woman, with the warmth, sensitivity,
feeling, perception and all the womanly virtues, plus a little masculine saltiness
in humor, surprise and accent (Gleason, 1959).
Interestingly, variations of this article appeared under the title of ‘Those
Distaff Jazz Artists’ on December 19 in the New York Journal-American,
and on December 20 in the Tucson, Arizona Star under the sub-heading
of Rhythm Section with the title of ‘Jazz A Man’s
World? This Woman Says No', both authored by Gleason.
For International Musician in December 1959, Dom Cerulli again made
gender the focus on Marian McPartland’s life in an article simply titled
‘Marian McPartland’. Cerulli weaves some of Marian’s earlier
opinions into this article, but takes a broader view of the scope of her career
to establish her as a successful jazz artist:
Marian McPartland is one of that rare breed of jazz musicians
whose message in music is elemental and swinging. She does not attempt to be
profound or trail-blazing or experimental. She does try to ‘get something
swinging going’ and establish a firm and clear communication with her
audience. That she is successful – in this man’s world of jazz –
is a tribute to her as a musician. And, of course, as a woman (Cerulli, 1959: 27).
Marian McPartland had completely reversed Leonard Feather’s prediction,
and the fact that she was 'English, white and a girl' proved to be intriguing to journalists
and critics. What she proved during the 1950s was that success as a non-American
female jazz pianist was possible, and that she had the New York scene firmly
in her grasp.
References
McPartland, M. (1972) Liner Notes to Marian And Jimmy McPartland: Goin' Back A Ways, Halcyon Records
Shaw, G. (1979) ‘Relationships Between Experiential Factors And Precepts Of Selected Professional Musicians In The United States Who Are Adept At Jazz Improvisation’, Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Oklahoma (Interview of Marian McPartland, pp. 691-716)
Wein, G. (2003) Myself Among Others: A Life In Music, Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press Inc
Hansson, C. (1999) Interview of Marian McPartland, Port Washington, NY, November 2
Lyons, L. (1976) ‘Marian McPartland: Pianist Laureate’, Contemporary Keyboard, January/February, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 8-9, 28-29
Lyons, L. (1983) The Great Jazz Pianists, New York: Da Capo Press Inc
Feather, L. (1951) ‘East Saw West: Twain Met’ in Girls In Jazz, DownBeat, July 13, p. 13
Page, M. (1951) ‘Dixieland Can Marry Bop!’, Melody Maker, July 7, p. 2
Page, M. (1950) 'British Cats Fight To Sound Their "A"', DownBeat, April 7 (This article also appeared with the heading 'British Struggle Futilely To Hear Jazz', n.d.)
Enstice, W. and Stockhouse, J. (2004) 'Interview With Marian McPartland', in Jazzwomen: Conversations With Twenty-One Musicians, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, pp. 230-251
Blumenthal, B. (2000) Liner notes to Marian McPartland: On 52nd Street, Savoy Jazz (Re-release)
Stewart, D (1999) ‘Marian McPartland: Still Going Full Tilt’, Available: http://www.current.org [May 15, 2004]
Hajdu, D. (1996) Lush Life: A Biography Of Billy Strayhorn, North Point Press: New York
O’Haire, P. (1974) ‘McPartland And Her Piano A Best Buy At The Pub’, Daily News, November 9
McPartland, M. (2003) Marian McPartland's Jazz World: All In Good Time, Urbana And Chicago: Illinois University Press
Shaw, A. (1971) 'Marian McPartland', in The Street That Never Slept: New York’s Fabled 52nd Street, New York: Coward, McCann & Geohagan, Inc, pp. 163-169
Simon, G. (ed.) (1955) Metronome Yearbook
Simon, G. (1955) Liner Notes to The Marian McPartland Trio, Capitol Records
Crow, B. (1992) From Birdland To Broadway, New York: Oxford University Press
Hentoff, N. (1954) Review of Marian McPartland At The Hickory House, DownBeat, April
Unknown author, 'Clean and Cool’, Newsweek, n.d.
Hentoff, N. (1956) ‘Marian McPartland: British Gift To Jazz’, Record Whirl, February
Hentoff, N. (1965) 'Britain's First Lady Of Jazz', Unknown source
Press Release - Concord Jazz Inc
Kanzler, G. (1997) ‘Pianist Known For Radio Series Duets Performs In a College-Series Three-For-All’, Sunday Star Ledger, October 12
Unknown author (2002) Obituary, 'Jazz At The Tip Of His Pen', The Melbourne Age, August
McPartland, M. (1957) Letter to John S. Wilson, October 2
Press Clipping, (1957) 'McPartland Sells Brace Of Scripts To CBS-TV', May 28
Cerulli, D. (1957) ‘Meet Maid Marian’, DownBeat, September 5, pp. 13, 32
Cerulli, D. (1957) ‘Marian McP: What’s It Like To Be A Woman In A Man’s Jazz World’, DownBeat, September 19, pp. 17-18
Hansson, C. (1999) Written Interview of Barbara Carroll, New York, November 19
Balliett, W. (1986) American Musicians: 56 Portraits In Jazz, New York: Oxford University Press
Krawcheck, J. (1957) ‘Cool Couple Plays Hot Jazz’, Cleveland, Ohio Press, March 1
Press Clipping (1957) ‘Jazz Concert Set In Troy Music Hall’, Unknown source, October 24
Mortimer, L. ‘Way Down South In – Merry England’, Unknown source, n.d.
Balliett, W. (2000) Collected Works: A Journal Of Jazz, 1954 – 2000, St. Martin’s Press: New York
Jemison, J. (1958) ‘Marion [sic] McPartland Plays Jazz For Fun With Royal Oak Host, Michigan Daily Tribune, June 5
Jones, M. (1958) ‘Marian McPartland’, Melody Maker, September 15, p. 3
Darack, A. (1958) ‘Very Big Thing’, Cincinnati, Ohio Enquirer, December 10
Unknown author (1959) ‘Marian McPartland’ in Cross Section, Chicago, Illinois Bi Weekly, March 19
Wilson, R. (1959) ‘Girl Pianist Wins Out Over Prejudice’ in World of Jazz, Oakland Tribune, November 29
Gleason, R. (1959) ‘Gals Put Some Frills On Jazz Lead Sheets’ in Rhythm Section, Cleveland, Ohio Plain Dealer, December 20
Gleason, R. (1959) ‘Those Distaff Jazz Artists’ in Rhythm Section, New York Journal American, December 19
Gleason, R. (1959) ‘Jazz A Man’s World? This Woman Says No’ in Rhythm Section, Tucson, Arizona Star, December 20
Cerulli, D. (1959) ‘Marian McPartland’, International Musician, December, pp. 26-27
