Marian McPartland :Live At Shanghai Jazz

MARIAN McPARTLAND TRIO
LIVE AT SHANGHAI JAZZ®

Concord Records

Live At Shanghai Jazz is an opportunity for listeners to be dazzled once again by the combination of swing, melodiousness, and tastefulness that is always present in the work of Marian McPartland. Accompanied by former Dave Brubeck drummer (and member of McPartland's famous Hickory House trio) Joe Morello and bassist par excellence Rufus Reid. In the company of these two old friends McPartland gives a relaxed and amiable performance that is much like the woman herself—forthright, pleasant, easy going yet energetic and sure.

The group starts off with the Mary Lou Williams tune "Scratchin' In the Gravel", which features Williams' trademark swinging phrases and gospel-influenced melody. "I always wanted to be able to swing as hard as she did" says McPartland of Williams. "That was something she could do no matter what the rhythm section was like, and I loved her creativity, she always wanted to be on the edge". Everyone gets a chance to really play out on this one, with McPartland and Reid turning in hot solos and Morello and McPartland trading fours near the end. After a gorgeous ballad turn on "For All We Know" she shifts beautifully into a bossa beat for "Pensativa", on which her solo is romantic and breezy.

Duke Ellington has always been one of McPartland's biggest influences and she covers two Ellington tunes here, "Just Squeeze Me" and "Prelude to a Kiss". Marian would often play an Ellington number when he came into the Hickory House. "Joe Morello got a little mad at me" she reveals in the album's liner notes "(he'd say) 'Every time Duke comes in you play his tunes'". "Just Squeeze Me" is from a live album McPartland recorded at the Hickory House back in 1953 with Morello behind the drum set. Though Ellington was obviously not in attendance this time, one can almost feel his approving presence in the room as the group eases through the number.

Rufus Reid's swinging little waltz "I Can't Explain" is given a nice workout by the trio, and Reid produces a nice solo that combines legato phrases with bouncier walking lines. Reid, who has performed with Philly Joe Jones, Thad Jones, Mel Lewis, Dexter Gordon, Bill Evans, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Farmer, and many others, is a bassist's bassist and an asset to any group he plays in. Likewise Morello, whose free-improvisation collaboration with McPartland, "A Snare and a Delusion", is surprisingly "out" for McPartland, who nevertheless performs the number with energy and enthusiasm.

Old friends return again in the guise of Alec Wilder's composition "Moon and Sand". Wilder was a close friend of McPartland's, even suggesting her as a possible replacement for his American Song program on NPR, which led to her long-running Piano Jazz. She works a baroque fugue figure into the middle of "All the Things You Are", an interesting device that keeps the audience on its toes. Rounding out the collection are the McPartland original "Shanghai Blues", a tribute to the venue where this CD was recorded over two nights, and one of the country's current best jazz venues. It's a wonderful straight-ahead blues that gives the entire group a chance to loosen up and blow. The closer is "Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair" a traditional song from McPartland's homeland and a personal romantic favorite.

If you have a number of McPartland's CDs in your collection, Live at Shanghai Jazz is a worthy addition to that collection. If you don't, this is as good a place to start as any. With McPartland the road goes in both directions—there is plenty of great music in her past, but she's always looking toward the future.