Marian McPartland Quotes (28 Quotes)

I like minor tunes.

That's something Mary Lou Williams used to tell me: If you're not feeling right about what you're doing and you play a minor tune it all comes back, falls into place. I don't know if that's true, but I do it.

The house is in turmoil with records on every space. In the kitchen and in the dining room is covered with records. I don't have a big enough house to accommodate everything.

As long as I can still be on my own and do my own thing and be working full time, it's great.

So if I think of something in my head I don't have to do it. If I can't do I don't do it, I do something else.

I'd just as soon be on a good Steinway or Yamaha just as well.

I'm not too fond of changing things into waltzes, but sometimes that works.

Madeleine called me from Europe recently and was worried about whether we'd have rehearsal time before we go on, which, of course, we will. One thing I did ask of her was that she not bring a thick sheaf of music with her. I'm a terrible reader, so we'll pick tunes we both know,

There are a million good tunes.

I'm trying to get the record that I made at my birthday party last year, trying to get that out, and the lawyers are diddling around with it and it probably won't be out until next year. I don't know.

Boy, I'm just quietly doing my thing, and I hope they'll look around and get my record out.

Well, I'm bringing what I like to call my Chicago rhythm section They both live there and those are the guys I use when I'm in the mid-west.

By the way, I got a Grammy, which was a big thrill.

that evening with 30-year-old Jason Moran. It turns out they've played together before -- on McPartland's show, at the Monterey Jazz Festival, and on what McPartland calls ''several casual dates here and there.

I need to get up and walk around and keep my knees from getting bad, which is what's happening.

My hands look terrible but I can do anything I want to do, so, you know, I just think I'm playing all around with more good taste and not dashing up and down the piano.

I would really hate to have e-mail. It's bad enough with all the mail I get.

sometimes go around with guys who are scuffling -- for awhile. But usually they end up marrying some cat with a factory. This is the way world ends, not with a whim but a banker.

I love to play in the different keys like B or F sharp, or keys that most people don't play in, because they have a better resonance or something. I'm really not fond of F and C. I just stay away from those if I can.

I have a West Coast rhythm section and a New York rhythm section. I've got them spread out all over the place.

Nowadays it seems to me nobody takes trouble about anything, especially writing songs.

Baldwin is sort of getting to be a bit funny. I don't know what happened, but a few years ago they suddenly went bankrupt and Gibson bought the whole outfit. Since then they haven't seemed to be doing an awfully good job of providing pianos.

Everybody seems to think Madeleine sounds like Billie Holiday, ... I think that's OK, but it's really not all that important an observation. She sounds a little bit like Billie to me, but that's not anything to make a big deal about it.

So I have a friend who works for me once a week. She's got e-mail, so anybody that must send an e-mail, they send it to her and she faxes it to me. Sounds like a long way of doing things, but it works for me.

Although I do feel that with a show like ours we ourselves are getting a lot more young listeners at concerts.

It's awful to have to, but I've started thinking about that, you know. 86. I'm thinking, well, maybe I might make it to 90. At least I'd like to have my brains.

Well it's because the record companies are pumping away with their commercial stuff. I think it's a shame.

At the risk of being a fuddy-duddy I don't have a computer; I don't have e-mail; and I really don't need something in my house that I would be sitting in front of for hours.