Jazz Condition -- UPI Arts & Entertainment

When pianist Marian McPartland began her weekly program "Piano Jazz" on National Public Radio in 1979, blending music and conversation with a featured guest pianist, she figured it would be a short-lived series.

"When I started I was thrilled and pleased and apprehensive. I thought, 'We'll be able to do this for a month or two and then it will fizzle out,'" she recalls. "A year had gone by and nobody said anything, but Exxon gave us some money and we were able to move into a real studio instead of performing in the Baldwin showroom, which is where it started out."

Her splendid show, which has featured a virtual "Who's Who" in jazz piano through the years, will celebrate its 25th year on National Public Radio in 2004. While she has added select singers and other instrumentalists in more recent years, such as Dizzy Gillespie, Gary Burton and Rosemary Clooney, the spotlight on fellow pianists has kept the show focused.

"I just thought I didn't want trouble calling up recalcitrant horn players and drummers and people who would either show up late or not show up, so if I only had one other person to worry about it wouldn't be bad," McPartland said in a public conversation with NPR's Tim Owens earlier this year at the International Association for Jazz Education in Toronto.

The British-born pianist's memories were vivid and her humor was wry and engaging during their IAJE conversation, which was a standing-room-only event.

"In the 24 years, we've only had one guest who didn't show up. It was Sammy Cahn. He didn't come because he died. It's terrible, but that's the only guest we ever lost. We haven't missed any shows," McPartland said.

The grand dame of jazz piano is about to reach a significant milestone of her own. She celebrates her 85th birthday on March 20. A grand party is scheduled on March 21 at Birdland in New York City. ABC news anchor Peter Jennings will host the event, which will feature singers Karrin Allyson, Nnenna Freelon and Curtis Stigers, pianists Bill Charlap, Billy Taylor -- one of her first "Piano Jazz" guests -- and George Wein, trumpeter Clark Terry, guitarist Jim Hall, saxophonists Ravi Coltrane and Phil Woods, and many others. McPartland will perform sets with two different rhythm sections from two of her longtime trios: bassist Bill Crow and drummer Joe Morello, and bassist Gary Mazzaroppi and drummer Glenn Davis.

Her two dozen seasons are filled with wonderful memories, many documented through Concord Records' release of programs on CD. The Peabody Award-winning show is a wonderful documentation of artists and their views on the art of making music, and the opportunity to make fresh music with their hostess.

"The wonderful thing about jazz is that everyone brings their own, personal touch to it. So there's something really good about everybody there," she said. "I think the one I did with Bill Evans is the most wonderful.

"He was just so open about what he did and how he did it and wanting to show how he would build a tune. He was talking about club dates he played. He told me he was at the (Village) Vanguard, sitting at the piano while they were taking a break, and he says a waiter with a tray walked between him and the piano. It also suggests that there must have been a lot of people in there to dig the group. He was just wonderful. I couldn't have wished for a more powerful guest in every way," she continued.

"I wasn't ready for Mary Lou Williams (her first guest). I loved Mary Lou, I admired here. She was, to me, an icon who had transcended the label 'woman musician.' She was sort of tough. I think she would have liked it to be her show and me be the guest, and she said as much.

"I was filled with such glee, calling up people on the phone -- John Lewis, Hazel Scott, Oscar Peterson, just about everyone at one time or another -- asking them if they would be guests on the show," she said. "Persistence is one of my main qualities."

McPartland learned to play by ear at a very young age in her native London, where Margot Fonteyn, who went onto become a prima ballerina, was a childhood playmate.

As she advanced in age and in talent, she left the Guildhall School of Music to go on the road with a vaudeville band. She says her mother "rolled her eyes and said: 'Oh, you'll come to no good. You'll marry a musician and live in an attic.' Well, I did, of course."

Toward the end of World War II, she and jazz cornetist Jimmy McPartland were touring with a company entertaining Allied troops. They married in 1945 at a military government building in occupied Germany, where Jimmy's company arranged a big party for the newlyweds. "We played at our own wedding," she said.

After the war, they spent three years living in Dixieland player Jimmy McPartland's native Chicago before heading east for the more expansive opportunities that New York offered both.

Her first gig at The Embers was planned as a trio with Don Lamond on drums and Eddie Safranski on bass. The club owner brought in saxophonist Coleman Hawkins and trumpeter Roy Eldridge to enhance the band.

Then came a 10-year run at the Hickory House, thrice weekly national radio broadcasts, and the start of her strong musical association with Morello and Crow.

"I used to think it was so nice that Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond were coming into the club to hear us," she said. "I didn't realize that Dave was getting ready to swipe my drummer."

Since they shared a publicist, McPartland says Ellington was a frequent visitor at the Hickory House. They sat in with each other's groups often.

"I loved his lush and intricate harmonies, going back to first hearing him in London," McPartland said. "Oh, I wish he'd been around for 'Piano Jazz.'"