A Little About Marian's Life

Margaret Marian Turner was born in England on March 21, 1918 near Slough, Buckinghamshire. As a child, young Marian Turner approached the piano around the age of three. While gaining proficiency on her own, she often provided musical entertainment at family gatherings. Her parents, however, enrolled Marian in violin lessons. Marian's enrollment in a boarding school ended her doomed attempt at playing the violin, and she eventually ended up at the famous London Guildhall School of Music where she studied piano and composition.

Marian was introduced to jazz by a boyfriend who often brought jazz records to her house. For hours they would listen to the music of Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, and others. From that point on, Marian was hooked on jazz. In 1943, Marian began playing in USO camp shows in Belgium and France, where she met a Chicago cornetist named Jimmy McPartland, a Bix Beiderbeck protege. The two were married and performed at their own wedding. Jimmy helped Marian to establish her credentials by convincing her to start her own trio. In 1952, Marian's trio began what was to become a long-running gig at New York's Hickory House, where many legendary musicians to whom Marian had once listened often sat in the audience listening to Marian.

After several years and much success at the Hickory House, Marian started her own record company--Halcyon Records--and began to record solo and small jazz ensemble works by other jazz composers, occasionally recording some of her own compositions. As she became more and more caught up in composition, she began to play her own tunes (such as Twilight World and In the Days of Our Love) when playing sets of standard tunes.

In 1978, Marian began hosting her own radio program for National Public Radio and South Carolina Educational Radio: Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz. Piano Jazz is one of the longest running weekly programs on NPR, featuring a wide range of guests, from legendary jazz artists to fledgling jazz talents. Today, when she's not in a studio recording her NPR program, putting together a new album, composing, or authoring an educational book or article, Marian is tirelessly touring the continent, performing for live audiences, or working to educate young students. Marian's most recently released CD on the Concord Jazz label is Just Friends, featuring jazz greats-- Tommy Flanagan, Renee Rosnes, George Shearing, Geri Allen, Dave Brubeck, and Gene Harris--playing duets with Marian. Additionally, a CD titled Portraits was released on the NPR label in the summer of 1999. This CD, as suggested by the title, is a compendium of Marian's musical portraits of several guests on Piano Jazz.

More to come...