Meet Marian McPartland

Background

Margaret Marian Turner was born in 1918 in Slough, near Windsor, Berkshire, England, into an upper middle class conservative family.  Her mother's uncles and cousins, the Dysons, lived around Slough, Eton and Windsor, and there were many musicians among them.  Her grandmother's house was in the cloisters near Windsor Castle.  Margaret's father, Frank Turner, was a civil engineer who was involved with machine tools, and the Turner family soon moved to Woolwich, a suburb of London.  When Margaret was in kindergarten, the family moved to Bromley, Kent, where she began her education in a one-room school.  

Further education continued at Avon Cliffe, a private school 'run by two well-meaning women'.  There followed a period at the Holy Trinity Convent School in Bromley, Kent, where Margaret Turner was reportedly 'hard to handle' (Enstice and Stockhouse, 2004: 233).  Janet Turner's solution to this was to send her daughter to a boarding school named Stratford House, in a neighbouring town.  Due to the school food and the smell of cooking, Margaret developed sick headaches, and eventually was permitted to attend the school as a day pupil. 

Musically, the young Margaret gravitated to the yellow-keyed piano of her great-uncle Harry at the age of three, climbing on to the piano stool to pick out the melody of a Chopin waltz she heard her mother play.  She soon developed the ability to pick up purely by ear anything she heard.  Because she could already play tunes, her parents refused to allow her to take piano lessons, directing her instead towards violin studies from the age of eight.  They travelled to London to buy a violin, and young Margaret was forced to take violin lessons, which she hated (Finston, 1973: 27).  However, her mother insisted that her daughter had 'violin fingers'.  Margaret played in concerts and competitions until the death of her teacher, Edith Jarvis, put an end to violin lessons:

But I never really enjoyed the violin.  I would practice in lacklustre fashion, with one eye on the clock, and when the minute time was up, I rushed back to the piano again.  Parents do the strangest things sometimes (McPartland, 1969).

In later years, Marian McPartland has often referred to herself as a 'miserable reader', and she mentioned in one interview that the way she learned to read music was from reading the violin part written in the treble clef (McPartland to Shaw, 1979: 691).  Young Margaret's next music teacher was Eleanor Izzard.  At Stratford House, Margaret was studying elocution with a Miss Gwen Mackie, and she developed a crush on this teacher.  'I used to ask my mother if she'd invite her over for tea or dinner. Finally Miss Mackie came, and it was she who advised my parents to send me up to the Guildhall School of Music in London.'

Miss Mackie apparently advised the Turners that their daughter had musical talent, and made complimentary remarks about her playing.  She also suggested enrolling Margaret in a music academy:

Anyway, I auditioned for the Guildhall and was accepted.  So I left Stratford House before I actually graduated.  They call it School Certificate, which I did not get.  Nobody seemed to care.  I left and went to the Guildhall and plunged into all the things I hadn’t done at all, like really practising (Enstice and Stockhouse, 2004: 233).

The Guildhall School Of Music And Drama

At age seventeen, the talented Miss Turner auditioned for Sir Landon Ronald, the head of the Guildhall School of Music.  She was accepted, winning a scholarship to study at this prestigious institution.  The School was the first municipal music college in Great Britain, and full-time courses were introduced by public request in 1920.  Departments of Speech, Voice and Acting were added, and by 1935, the School was renamed the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Margaret commuted to the Guildhall in London every day from Bromley, and, as well as studying piano technique, she studied composition, harmony, sight-singing, theory, and took up violin again as a second instrument.  Violin tuition did not last very long, as Margaret had difficulty relating to the teacher.  She studied piano with Orlando Morgan, teacher of famed pianist Myra Hess, and her singing teacher was Carrie Tubb, a retired opera singer.

Reflecting on those years, Marian McPartland recalled that she had no teenage life at all, devoting every spare moment to practising Hanon exercises and classical pieces, and competing for scholarships:

I can look back on having a pretty good repertoire of Beethoven and Bach, and a lot of short pieces by various composers, known and unknown, and doing concerts at the Guildhall (Enstice and Stockhouse, 2004: 234).

She won several prizes which paid for her three years at the Guildhall.  One prize was the composition scholarship of the Worshipful Company of Musicians, awarded to her after having written and performed a piano work named 'Valse Gracieuse'.

Archival records at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama revealed that in 1938 Margaret Turner was awarded the 'Associate of the Guildhall School of Music (AGSM - Performers) with Honours'.  For this achievement, she received a Bronze Medal for the Chairman's Pianoforte Prize (Research visit to the Guildhall, London, 2000).  

However, according to a recent interview, Margaret Turner was also being groomed for a further degree, the Licentiate of the Guildhall School of Music (LGSM), a teaching degree.  'I have the certificate on the wall downstairs, but I never did get the concert degree, because I left,' said Marian McPartland  (Enstice and Stockhouse, 2004: 234).

Ears Opened To Jazz

Margaret Turner's one passion was jazz music, introduced to her by a boyfriend who owned a fine collection of jazz records.  Together they spent hours listening to jazz pianists Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, Art Tatum, Bob Zurke and Teddy Wilson on 78 rpm discs, and Margaret would try to play along with the records.  'I would sit down at the piano and try to duplicate Bob Zurke choruses or Teddy Wilson choruses and it always used to puzzle me that it never sounded the way they did' (Gardner, 1973: 4).

Marian McPartland later wrote about her introduction to jazz:  

I'll always be grateful to a boyfriend who brought Duke's and other jazz recordings over to our house and made me really listen, he made me aware of the Ellington band's unique orchestral sounds - the quality and tone color of each soloist - Duke as a pianist - his way of voicing chords - the strong, exciting rhythms of the band.  I absorbed it all, and from then on I was hooked! (McPartland, 2003: 3).

As her interest in jazz deepened, Margaret developed a friendship with another young man who was a fair jazz piano player.  'We would get together at his house, talk about tunes, and play them' (Enstice and Stockhouse, 2004: 234).  This went on for about three years until Margaret, being groomed for a concert career, became far more interested in jazz than in classical music.  Gradually she acquired a repertoire of tunes, and persistently applied her piano technique and keen ears to experimenting with jazz, an activity which met with the disapproval of her piano professor, Orlando Morgan:

My ears were more attuned to Art Tatum than Scarlatti and I kept playing more and more jazz during my practice time to the annoyance of my piano teacher who would open the practice-room door and snap, 'Stop playing that drivel!' (McPartland, 1969).

Margaret also picked up jazz on BBC radio, and to her ears the sound and feel of jazz pianists was irresistible, whether from black pianists Art Tatum, Teddy Wilson, Fats Waller and Duke Ellington, or white pianists Bob Zurke, Joe Sullivan, Mel Powell or Jess Stacy.  She was also influenced by a program on BBC radio called The Society Of Lower Basin Street featuring Dinah Shore, and learned many jazz standards from that show.  She remembered hearing about Duke Ellington playing in a London club, and Fats Waller appearing at the Palladium, but didn't dare to ask her parents if she could attend the concerts (Baldwin Piano Company, Interview of Marian McPartland, May 14, 2002).  

Marian McPartland explained in another interview:

I came from the last kind of family in the world that would have anybody connected with jazz.  My parents never liked me to be involved in music at all, even though I'd played from the age of 2 or 3.  They were upper middle class, not bad people, but snobbish and prejudiced.  They wouldn't let me play with certain children, one whose father owned a store, because they were tradespeople and a lower strata, and one who was a Jew.  My mother would have me play [the piano] while she and Aunty were having tea and they would talk loudly and with an indulgent look say, 'That was very nice, dear.'  I'd feel crushed.  I'm still playing for people who are eating and making noise.  I enjoy it now (Hansson, Interview of Marian McPartland, November 2, 1999).

'Aunty' happened to be the mother of famed ballet dancer Dame Margot Fonteyn.

Margaret drank in as much jazz as she could, and was in awe of women pianists such as Lil Hardin, Hazel Scott, Mary Lou Williams and Cleo Brown.  She heard two outstanding English pianists - Rae [Raie] Da Costa, a brilliant technician, and Winifred Atwell, a ragtime stylist.  Margaret's father apparently was a fan of Winifred Atwell.  He once said, '"Why don't you get a style like Winifred Atwell?  I can understand the melody when SHE plays."  This made me furious' (McPartland, 2003: 2).

Billy Mayerl's Claviers (1938)

With her insatiable desire to play jazz, Margaret Turner sneaked away from the Guildhall just prior to graduation to audition for Billy Mayerl, pianist and composer of popular novelty piano pieces, such as 'Marigold'.  'He offered a jazz course, so I went up to his studio to take this course.  He heard me play, and instead of teaching me, he offered me a job' (McPartland to Shaw, 1979: 694).  

Billy Mayerl offered Margaret a position in his four-piano troupe, Billy Mayerl and His Claviers, which was about to go tour the country.  A family conclave was held, and Margaret's horrified father offered her one thousand pounds to abandon the idea and become a bank teller or a nurse.  Defiant, she invented a stage name, Marian Page, to avoid embarrassing her parents.  The name derived from her mother's maiden name, Janet Payne, and Margaret changed Payne to Page, and combined it with her own second name, Marian (Stewart, 1999).

[Author's note: Marian kept the stage name for some years until discovering, when she arrived in the U.S., that there was an American 'Marian Page' playing jazz piano in New York.  By this time her married name was McPartland (Hansson, Telephone Interview with Marian McPartland, 2004)].

Billy Mayerl's Claviers consisted of the leader Billy, George Myddelton, Dorothy Carless and Marian Page, and during 1938 the group toured throughout the United Kingdom, as well as recording for Decca and broadcasting for the BBC.  Marian was very impressed with Dorothy Carless, who sang as well as playing piano.  As Marian Page, she also became known to British audiences through broadcasts on radio with singer Raquelle Dorne, who made famous the song 'Who Walks In' in 1934 (Melody Maker, March 3, 1945).

During this time, the Turner family moved to Eastbourne, Sussex.  Marian recalled entertaining in grand vaudeville theatres throughout the country, replete with velvet seats and velvet curtains.  After this stint with Mayerl, Marian teamed up with another woman pianist, Roma Clarke, in a piano duo, playing Gershwin tunes in the pit instead of an orchestra.  After that she began playing piano and taking on the role of musical director for Concert Parties:

There would be people who played on the pier, like at Blackpool, or some seaside town where they'd have a hall at the end of the pier, and there would be a group made up of a girl singer, a juggler, two comedians, and various assorted acts.  That's probably the most sight-reading I ever did, playing for those kinds of gigs (Enstice and Stockhouse, 2004: 235). 

Although Marian Page had promised her parents that she would go back to the Guildhall when the Billy Mayerl tour was over, she continued performing with concert parties and variety shows until the early years of the war.  However, her study at the Guildhall stood her in good stead, as she had developed an impressive piano technique.

1939-1944

In 1939, at the age of twenty-one, Marian Page was with a concert party on a pier in a seaside town, acting as musical director of a variety show.  'There would be a comedian, tap dancer, singer, and I was the piano player' (McDonough, 2000: 47).  During this seaside concert at Felixstowe in September 1939, the troupe learned that war had been declared and the military came in and lined the beaches with barbed wire, changing the look of the countryside immediately.  Marian recalled, 'My sister Joyce was there, and she remembers how everything suddenly became very ominous and they put up barbed wire on the beach - you knew something terrible was going to happen' (Enstice and Stockhouse, 2004: 235).  

Some time after the war had started, Marian Page joined Carroll Levis's Discoveries, again a variety show, a British version of the American 'Major Bowes Amateur Hour'.  Marian was not one of the 'discoveries', but was hired to play piano for all of the acts, audition them, rehearse them, play in the show and rehearse the pit band at the different theatres where they played.  'We played all the Vanderbilt theatres in England' (McPartland to Shaw, 1979: 695).

In another interview, Marian described her involvement with the 'Discoveries':

This was a vaudeville show, and I am so thrilled to have played at all the wonderful vaudeville houses all over England.  I’m sure most of them are gone, but some of them were quite beautiful with velvet seats.  I mean, nobody cares anymore about that – they’re probably all parking lots – but I think I played in every one of them either with Billy or with Carroll.  And I would be the pianist for the show, and I would be the person who would rehearse the pit band for the show.  I know I did it, but when I think of it now! (Hansson, Interview of Marian McPartland, November 2, 1999).

To avoid being conscripted into the women's army, Marian enlisted with the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA), to bring camp shows to English troops.  'We toured all over England with a show consisting of a trio: me, bass, and drums.  It had two comedians, a girl singer, and a juggler.  It was a typical variety show' (McPartland to Shaw, 1979: 695). 

The entertainers were constantly bombed and strafed, and eventually they became blasé when the air raid warning sounded and just continued on with the show.  One of the girls who had been with Carroll Levis joined the United Service Organizations (USO) Camp Shows, and convinced Marian that it would be to her advantage to transfer to the American entertainment organization:

She made it sound very glamorous, so I went to USO headquarters and said that I'd like to join USO, but I thought they were crazy!  They would come over from the States bringing a bunch of acts and expect to find piano players all ready for them in England.  I thought that was rather rash (Enstice and Stockhouse, 2004: 235).

After transferring to the American entertainment unit USO, Marian Page was assigned to Willie Shore's 'Bandwagon'.  Marian recalled playing similar dates to the ENSA shows, but with American acts, comedians, singers and dancers, and occasionally headliners like James Cagney or Edward G.  Robinson guesting with the show.  

After the D-Day invasion, the show was ordered across the English Channel to entertain troops on the European front.  On July 23, 1944, Marian was the first English girl to wade ashore on Omaha Beach in Normandy.  

Marian recalled in interviews:

We had to learn how to put up a pup tent, we had all the GI equipment, the boots and the helmets, everything except the guns.  We waded ashore like MacArthur, out of a small boat.  Here again, I should have kept a diary.  It was tragic to drive through villages that were razed to the ground and there was a smell of death.  You could look through the houses still standing, and you could see that people had just jumped up from the table and run for their lives.  I mean, it was really tragic, but somehow I didn’t feel it as much then as I did afterwards (Hansson, Interview of Marian McPartland, November 2, 1999).

We were having such a jolly time enjoying playing everywhere we played, cause naturally the GIs were thrilled to have this entertainment.  They would either build a stage or we would perform on the back of a flatbed truck.  At one point we had Fred Astaire as a guest, and he did his show in combat boots on a makeshift stage (Enstice and Stockhouse, 2004: 235-236).

Despite learning how to put up a pup tent, Marian McPartland recalled that they never had to live in one, as there were always GIs around who would put the entertainers in a proper tent, or they would stay in any hotel that was left standing.  Marian described the style of entertainment:

It was like another variety show.  The head guy would be the comedian, and he would be running the show, then there would be a singer, there was a young man who was the guitar player – not very good – and the girl juggler, and it was just a mixed bag.  And then maybe a male singer, and once in a while if there were any GI performers around they would join in (Hansson, Interview of Marian McPartland, November 2, 1999).

'Bandwagon' toured all the combat zones, and Marian performed on both piano and piano accordion, always gowned in glamorous satins and sequins even for morning shows, so that the troops were treated to a concert in true show business style.  Performing with 'Bandwagon', Marian Page followed the GIs into France and Belgium, playing for soldiers at the front lines.  Remembering the primitive conditions of life entertaining the troops during World War II, Marian felt a sense of bemusement at 'meeting Dinah Shore for the first time - sitting side-by-side in an outdoor portable john' (Stewart, 1999).

When 'Bandwagon' arrived in Belgium, the show was attached to the First Army.  After going through battered towns, the group eventually arrived at a rest centre in the town of Eupen, staying in the Schmitzroth Hotel.  Marian Page found herself in close proximity to the battlefield, and to jazz sounds being played by American GI musicians.  A big army band was stationed nearby in St. Vith, and word went out that the famed cornet player from Chicago, James Dugald McPartland, was being transferred from a Triple-A unit to the Second Special Service Company in the area where USO personnel were billeted: 

Chicago-born Jimmy McPartland began playing cornet in the early twenties, worked with The Wolverines, Ben Pollack and many thirties Broadway shows, later leading his own band.  Joining the US Army in 1942 he was in the artillery in the front lines until 1944 when, through an old Chicago contact (comedian Willie Shore), he was transferred to Special Service, leading various bands entertainment service personnel in numerous military installations throughout Europe (Middleton, 1986).

Jimmy's detached service was arranged by Willie Shore, who convinced authorities that Jimmy's best contribution to the war effort would be as a musician, not as a foot soldier with an anti-aircraft gun crew.  Jimmy's transfer to the Second Special Service Company came through just before the Battle of the Bulge.  During a jam session in a marquee to welcome him, Jimmy McPartland became aware of a pretty girl in a USO uniform determined to sit in on piano: 

Oh, no, a girl piano player, and not only a girl, but British.  Oh Christ, help!  So sure enough she sat in, played 'Honeysuckle Rose' and she was so excited she was rushing, but that was all right, she was a nice person.  After a couple of numbers I could hear her harmony and it struck me so.  Her name was Marian Page at the time (Rusch, 1980: 11).  

At the time she was so eager to sit in at this jam session, Marian Page had never heard of Jimmy McPartland as a musician.  She later agreed that, 'My timing was bad, and I was so eager to play I just played all over everybody, so that was something I learned in a hurry.not to do that!' (McPartland to Shaw, 1979: 700).

Jimmy McPartland fell in love with both the English girl and her playing, even though she was a jazz novice, and through what Marian called propinquity, a romance blossomed.  Marian Page became the pianist with the small group led by Jimmy McPartland:

And we worked together in this little group, Jimmy and myself, a GI bass player and drummer, and a singer and dancer from the USO group.  We would go out every day in a weapons carrier, which was very uncomfortable, and play for the troops in the front lines (Enstice and Stockhouse, 2004: 236).

Marian McPartland still recalls vividly that memory of being jostled along every day at 10 o'clock in the morning in the weapons carrier:

We’d all be dressed up so the GIs would see us in our sequins and beads, and we had Jimmy and the bass player and a drummer, and that’s how we got together.  Propinquity – there we were.  What else to do but fall in love? (Hansson, Interview of Marian McPartland, November 2, 1999).

1945

Jimmy McPartland was raised to the rank of captain, and on February 3, 1945, he and Marian Page were married by Chaplain Harry V. Hamblin at Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle), Germany.  According to a letter written soon afterwards by Marian McPartland to the English jazz magazine Melody Maker, theirs was the first Anglo-American wedding to take place in wartime Germany.  The army gave the young couple a car to travel to Brussels for a week's honeymoon.  When the Germans staged their big breakthrough, Jimmy and Marian got out with minutes to spare (Melody Maker, March 3, 1945). 

On one occasion Jimmy's fifteen-piece dance band needed a piano for a special show.  The colonel gave him the name of a collaborator in the town, Jimmy organised eight men and a truck and transported a beautiful grand piano back to the theatre, after telling the owner he would get paid.  Marian remembered, 'I was really impressed.  You said you were going out to get me a new piano and you did.  It was one of your finest moments'. When Jimmy McPartland was discharged from service in Paris in September 1945, Marian organized her own stage show with Celeste Holm as the star with a six-piece band.  Jimmy joined the show as Master of Ceremonies, and they toured Germany, France, Holland, Belgium and England for several months.  In Versailles, they performed at Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Headquarters for General Eisenhower with Fred Astaire as guest star.

They also performed with legendary guitarist Django Reinhardt at the Olympia in Paris during the latter part of the war.  During the Christmas period of 1945, the McPartlands visited England, where Jimmy met Marian's family, and they enjoyed much publicity generated from broadcast camp shows (Brown, 1946).  

During the London visit, Jimmy made contact with guitarist Vic Lewis, whom he knew from the guitarist's pre-war visit to New York, and the McPartlands featured on the Vic Lewis Jam Sessions, Volume 3: 1945 -1946 in January 1946.  Jimmy and Marian managed to negotiate to sail together on a Victory ship from Le Havre to New York, the voyage taking seventeen days. 

1946-1949

They arrived in New York on April 23, 1946, checked into the Victoria Hotel, then went to Eddie Condon's Club in Greenwich Village where Marian sat in with the band.  She also heard Louis Armstrong at a venue called The Aquarium.  The couple were guests of drummer Gene Krupa during their stay, and Jimmy proudly escorted his war bride to hear Krupa's band at the 400 Restaurant.

Then they returned to Chicago, Jimmy's home town, to meet his family.  For a time, the McPartlands stayed with Jimmy's sister, then they lived in an attic, just as Marian's mother had predicted would happen if her precious daughter married a musician.  The couple soon became a musical team in civilian life in Chicago.

After staying with Jimmy's sister for a time, the McPartlands moved downtown to the Croydon Hotel, a musicians' hotel, then to a one-room apartment in Dearborn Street.  They began working at a venue on the south side called the Rose Bowl, a bar next to a bowling alley:

A glorified bar that had music.  I remember that in this particular place, the Rose Bowl, I would play a classical solo in the set, which was dumb, as I think about it now.  Jimmy would give me a big build-up, and in the middle of the piece somebody in the bowling alley got a strike and this cheering would come from the bowling alley.  This always happened.  The scene was just terribly funny.  It still is, though at the time I was distraught; my solo was always spoiled.  Of course, later I stopped playing those things.  I got into bebop (Enstice and Stockhouse, 2004: 238).

In August 1946, Marian secured a daily fifteen-minute radio spot and worked on a series of transcriptions.  She was also chosen to record for Benny Pollack on his new label.  Marian took the piano chair in Jimmy's six-piece combo, and wrote arrangements for the group:

At one point Jimmy and I had a little group together in the late '40s.  We were working in Moline, and I put together a really nice little arrangement of [Bix Beiderbecke's] 'In A Mist' that we played and recorded on what might have been the earliest of the homemade labels called Unison.  We only put out about four sides, and then we went to England and leased or sold these records to a guy named Dick Auty, who had a record company.  They're all floating around somewhere (Enstice and Stockhouse, 2004: 237).

Melody Maker magazine reported their successes at various clubs throughout Chicago, and particularly at the Hot Club of Chicago where they presented a 'battle of the bands' called Swing versus Jazz (Brown, 1946). The McPartlands appeared in various Chicago clubs, such as The Blue Note, The Brass Rail, Capital Lounge, The Tabu Club, Charlie's Tavern and The Silhouette, where they worked opposite Billie Holiday.  According to a set of liner notes, during Marian's time at the Blue Note in Chicago, visiting jazz people Dave Garroway, Peggy Lee, Art Tatum and George Shearing pronounced her 'the greatest' (Cadena, 1952).

However, Time magazine had expressed doubts about Marian's ability to have the punch to keep up with her husband, one of the names among the masters of the Chicago jazz school (Quoted in 'Ten Fairy Fingers, n.d.).  This undated review of a performance by the five-piece group led by Jimmy McPartland opined that British war bride Marian 'Page' had the talent to be a co-star of the 'jive' combination:

There's a little British war bride with fingers that dance brightly across a keyboard at the Brass Rail who is going to make Time magazine eat its words.  She is Marion [sic] Page, London-born wife of trumpeter Jimmy McPartland... Marion dug in, rehearsed endlessly and absorbed the jazz rhythm.  Today the McPartland followers - they were standing four deep to hear him the other night - are saying that Mrs. McP is probably without a peer among women pianists in American jazz combinations ('Ten Fairy Fingers', n.d.).  

During this period, Melody Maker published a photograph and caption with the heading 'Chicago Success For British Girl':

Well-known English artist Marion [sic] Page who is now married to Jimmy McPartland is shown here with her husband and the band which is resident at The Brass Rail in Chicago.  The band is five-piece, consisting of cornet, clarinet doubling sax, bass doubling guitar, drums doubling vibes, and piano.  Mrs. McPartland does all the arranging and asks us to send her regards to her many friends in England (Melody Maker, n.d.).

The Chicago years were formative years stylistically for Marian, as Jimmy helped her master the Chicago-style jazz, yet encouraged her to listen to more modern sounds from radio, records, and jazz artists on tour.  Marian was excited to hear pianist Lennie Tristano, George Shearing with Margie Hyams on vibraphone, and accordionist/singer Joe Mooney when they came through town.  Media person Dave Garroway was famous in Chicago long before he went to New York to host The Today Show.  According to Marian:

He had the definitive jazz radio show on station WMAQ, The Eleven Sixty Club.  We would leave the Brass Rail between sets and sit in [drummer] Chick Evans' car to listen to Dave's program.  Through his discerning choice of records and hip comments about them, I learned a lot of songs by the young up-and-coming Sarah Vaughan; swinging pianist-singer Nellie Lutcher chanting her hit tune 'Fine Brown Frame'; Dizzy Gillespie playing 'Groovin' High'; the George Shearing Quintet, newly famous for 'Moon Over Miami' and 'September In The Rain'; the Joe Mooney Quartet (quintessential singer and accordionist); Lennie Tristano's trio playing 'way out' changes on 'I Can't Get Started'.  I think Dave Garroway had the best jazz radio show ever.  We listened to it every minute we could spare.  I wish he were still doing it (McPartland, 1972).

Garroway's laidback commentary caught the attention of Chicago audiences, and later spread to a nationwide following.

Marian McPartland was also influenced by the delicate yet strong style of singer/pianist Jeri Southern, who accompanied herself at the Hi-Note with lush chordal accompaniment.  After working at the Brass Rail from nine until three in the morning, Marian and Jimmy would borrow Chick Evans' car and race to the south side of the city to a club called Jump Town to hear Jackie Cain and Roy Kral with violinist Charlie Ventura, who would still be playing their last set (Lyons, 1983: 170).   

Together, the McPartlands did many jazz concerts in those years, playing in Boston and Philadelphia as well as Chicago.  Marian particularly remembers the concerts at Child's Paramount and the Stuyvesant Casino (Stewart, 1999).  Although from 1946 Jimmy had supported and encouraged Marian's development as a jazz pianist, stylistically they came to a parting of the musical ways around 1949.

Transition to Bop

According to critic John S. Wilson,

Service in the armed forces removed jazz fans of all degrees from contact with the music for three, four or five years.  Moreover, a ban on recording, imposed by the American Federation of Musicians on its members while the union attempted to negotiate new contract terms with the record companies, lasted from mid-1942 until late in 1943.  This ban eliminated the principal means for the dissemination of new jazz ideas at what turned out to be a vital period in the music's development (Wilson, 1966: 2). 

Wilson argued that a gradual transition had taken place during the war years that made it seem as though an explosion had occurred in the mid-forties.  'Suddenly there was something called bop.  Suddenly there was a high-powered revival of early traditional jazz.  Suddenly the familiar big bands were being sidetracked by small groups.  Suddenly jazz was a concert music, no longer a music for dancing' (Wilson, 1966: 3).

Jazz producer, Orrin Keepnews, recalled his first exposure to the new developments, 'But all I could hear was a screeching exhibitionistic trumpet, a whining saxophone, very little discernible melody, and no sort of reliable beat. I hated it' (Wilson, 1966: 3).  

Marian McPartland had arrived in the United States in 1946, and after several months became immersed in Jimmy's Chicago-style band.  During the war years, she had heard V-discs, records made in the States for the American servicemen.  'All the jazz greats made these records for the soldiers.  They would be lying around in some recreation hall, and I'd sit down and play all of this music.  I was absolutely floored by the music I was hearing' (McPartland to Shaw, 1979: 696).  

Marian was 'floored' again when she first heard bop at the house of Charles Delaunay, the French critic.  'I couldn't understand what the pianist was doing, and I remember asking Delaunay if the piano parts were written down.  Now it sounds so easy' (Ullman, 1980: 57-58).  During the late forties, through listening to jazz broadcasts, records, and musicians visiting Chicago, Marian McPartland would have been exposed to the so-called 'explosion' occurring in jazz in New York.  

As she heard these changes in the air, her playing was constantly changing.  It has been documented that after listening to clarinettist Joe Marsala at the Hickory House steakery in the mid-1940s, Marian chided him for his modernity (Shaw, 1971: 155).  Little did she know that the Hickory House would be her pianistic home during the next decade, and that stylistically she would move into modern jazz.  

At Jimmy's insistence, the McPartlands moved permanently to New York around 1949.  Before making the move, the couple returned to England for a visit, and to publicize the four sides they had recorded with Chicago musicians on their own label, Unison.  On their return to the United States, they leased the recording to Prestige.  They left Chicago in 1949, pausing en route to play a date at the Rendezvous Club in Philadelphia, owned by Lee Guber, one of the most successful theatrical impresarios on Broadway.  They subsequently recorded four more sides on the Unison label with Boston musicians.  These sides were also released on Prestige:

Much has happened since those years. The music world and in fact the whole world is so new and different now, and it keeps changing.  But the fond memories of our Chicago and Boston days remain constant, and the mellow sounds still echo faintly in our ears (McPartland, 1972).

Having decided to make the move from Chicago, the McPartlands first of all resided in an apartment hotel in Long Beach:

I think it was Jimmy's idea. I remember we actually walked on the beach on Christmas Day.  Jimmy no longer had his New York 802 Union card; he had to wait six months to get back in.  I'm sure there must have been strings he could have pulled, but he didn't.  You couldn't work a steady job, you had to take one-nighters for about three months, or something like that.  I was trying to get my card as well.  I already had my Chicago card.But anyway, we were living there in Long Beach and working at some one-night places in New York.  Then I guess we moved into New York.  We got an apartment on the West Side - West Eighty-First Street - which was a little bigger and better (Enstice and Stockhouse, 2004: 239).

For Marian McPartland, a whole new chorus was about to begin.

References

Balliett, W. (1986) 'The Key Of D Is Daffodil Yellow', in American Musicians: 56 Portraits In Jazz, New York: Oxford University Press.

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

Finston, M. (1973) 'Marian McPartland Leads A Jazzy Life At The Keyboard', The Star Ledger, January 26, p. 27

Shaw, G. (1979) 'Relationships Between Experiential Factors And Percepts 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).

McPartland, M. (1969) 'Music Is My Life', International Musician, September, pp. 6-8

Gardner, M. (1973) 'The Jazz Journal Interview: Marian McPartland Talks To Mark Gardner', Jazz Journal, vol. 26, no. 4, pp. 4-7

McPartland, M. (1987) All In Good Time, New York: Oxford University Press

McPartland, M. (2003) Marian McPartland's Jazz World: All In Good Time, Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press

Unknown author (2002) Baldwin Piano Company, Interview of Marian McPartland, May 14, Available: http://www.baldwinpiano.com [November 21, 2002]

Campbell, M. (1973) 'Interpreting Wilder', Asbury Park Sunday Press, October 21

Hansson, C. (1999) Interview of Marian McPartland, Port Washington, NY, November 2

Stewart, D. (1999) 'Marian McPartland: Still Going Full Tilt', Available: http://www.current.org [May 15, 2004]

Hansson, C. (2004) Telephone Interview with Marian McPartland, New York, January 20

Unknown author (1945) 'Jimmy McPartland Weds Pianiste In Germany', Melody Maker, March 3

McDonough, J. (2000) 'Marian McPartland: On The Witness Stand', DownBeat, vol. 67, no. 5, May, pp. 47-49

Lyons, L. (1983) The Great Jazz Pianists, New York: Da Capo Press Inc

Middleton, T. (1986) Liner Notes to Vic Lewis Jam Sessions, Volume 3: 1945-1946, Harlequin Records

Rusch, B. (1980) 'The McPartlands: Interview', Cadence, March, pp. 11-14, 83

Page, M. (1951) 'Dixieland Can Marry Bop', Melody Maker, July 7, p. 2

Unknown author (1946) 'Buddies In War And Peace', DownBeat, February 11

Brown, C. (1946) 'The Musical McPartlands', Melody Maker, October 12

Cadena, O. (1952) Liner notes to Great Britain's: Marian McPartland And George Shearing Trios, Savoy Jazz

Press Clipping, 'Ten Fairy Fingers', Time Inc, n.d.

Press Clipping, 'Chicago Success For British Girl', Melody Maker, n.d.

McPartland, M. (1972) Liner Notes to Marian And Jimmy McPartland: Goin' Back A Ways, Halcyon Records

Wilson, J. S. (1966) Jazz: The Transition Years, 1940 to 1960, New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts

Ullman, M. (1980) Jazz Lives: Portraits In Words And Pictures, Washington, D.C.: New Republic Books

Shaw, A. (1971) 'Marian McPartland', in The Street That Never Slept: New York's Fabled 52nd Street, New York: Coward, McCann & Geohagen Inc, pp. 163-169