Shall We Play That One Together? - The Life and Art of Jazz Piano Legend Marian McPartland, With a New Preface

The life of the unparalleled purveyor of the Great American Songbook, Marian McPartland, is celebrated in this engrossing biographyFrom Bobby Short to Esperanza Spalding, across the 33-year run of the acclaimed radio show, Piano Jazz, Marian McPartland conversed and played piano duets with jazz greats and, via National Public Radio syndication, brought the best of jazz standards to listeners. In Shall We Play That One Together?, Paul de Barros considers McPartland's full life and shows her to have been a courageous compositional innovator as well as an immensely talented popularizer and educator. Her standing among the jazz artists and her advocacy for women jazz musicians made McPartland a natural to host the Piano Jazz show conceived of in 1978 and first broadcast on WLTR out of Columbia, South Carolina, in 1979. That show secured her reputation in the musical form and allowed her to introduce American and then global audiences to a diverse array of musicians developing the Great American Songbook.Review QuoteThis book is, in short, one of the best jazz biographies of the past decade, and it will likely inspire the reader to go back and listen to the subject's albums and radio broadcasts." - Jazz Times"Throughout, McPartland's openness and de Barros's careful writing create a holistic portrait of one of this century's most important jazz pianists." - Down BeatBiographical NotePaul de Barros is a noted jazz critic and author the author of Jackson Street After Hours, a history of jazz in Seattle. He writes for Down Beat and his work can be seen in many jazz festival programs and album liner notes.