Celebrating Marian McPartland

KUVO will spotlight McPartland’s music all day on her centennial, March 20, 2018! She would have turned 100 years of age on March 20, 2018. There’s a wonderful local connection with Marian McPartland. She headlined KUVO’s 20^th anniversary concert in 2006 at Teikyo Loretto Heights Theater in Denver.

Marian’s long-running radio show “Piano Jazz,” (which may be the longest running public radio music program currently on the air) was recorded over a 30-year span, and won a Peabody Award.  Piano Jazz has been a forum for jazz legends and influential performers as well as up-and-coming talents. Oscar Peterson, Herbie Hancock, Dave Brubeck, Diana Krall, Max Roach, Cassandra Wilson, Ellyn Rucker and Tony Bennett are among the over 400 guests who joined McPartland to create dynamic duets and discuss their lives and music.

McPartland’s legacy is formidable, including her 2010 appointment as “Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) and a Grammy Trustees Lifetime Achievement Award (2004).  Her Lifetime Achievement Award from Down Beat magazine came in 1994.  She is also pictured in the famous “Great Day in Harlem” photograph from 1958.

Marian McPartland lived to age 95, passing away of natural causes in August of 2013.

Don’t miss “Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz,” Saturdays at 8:00 a.m. on KUVO Jazz.