Afterglow – 1975
Marian McPartland
A beautiful solo piano rendition of an original ballad
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Marian McPartland (1918-2013) is today perhaps best remembered for her hosting the acclaimed radio series Piano Jazz during 1979-2013, but she was also a major jazz pianist herself.
Born and raised in England, she met and married cornetist Jimmy McPartland in the mid-1940s, moved to the United States and, while originally playing Dixieland and swing, she gradually became a more modern pianist.
McPartland’s harmonically advanced style, influenced by Billy Strayhorn and the more adventurous pianists of the 1950s, is very much in evidence on her solo piano version of her ballad “Afterglow” which was performed at the 1975 Monterey Jazz Festival.
-Scott Yanow
Ella Fitzgerald