Quote Originally Posted by Tattoo Bradley View Post
This thread makes me think of Bill Cosby as seen on The Cosby Show.

While I respect the musicians, it's just not my taste.
If the drug scene and all turns you off, I recommend Dave Brubeck, who is intensely Christian as well as being one of the finest jazz pianists, EVER, and one of the most interesting composers as well. Dave is 80 and still concertizing in large part due to "clean living".

Or Marian MacPartland....check out her "Piano Jazz" show on Public Radio. Marian is a freakin' National Treasure and I hope every single one of her radio shows is archived because they are a massive source of historical insight as well as wonderful music.

Marian was there at the beginning. She was married to Jimmy MacPartland, who was one of the two or three in-demand white cornet players in Chicago in the mid-late 20's.... Jimmy, Wild Bill Davison, Muggsy Spanier... all cornetists...members of the Austin High Gang, named because most of the guys went to Austin High School. Not part of the gang, but contemporaries with them is someone else you might have heard of...a Jewish kid named Bennie Goodman. These guys dared to go to the Black parts of Chicago and hear the black musicians like Louis Armstrong and Kid Ory and . It was they who brought Jazz into white America and turned the syncopated "New York Style" Society Music of Paul Whiteman and Bix Beiderbecke and the Wolverines into something grittier....that really became jazz.

Marian was there.

Look at this picture http://www.glennmcdonald.com/images/...20-%201958.JPG

It was taken in Harlem, I think in 1933.. It's mostly black men, though there are some white men in that picture. There's one white woman in the front row wearing a white dress with a plunging neckline.....Marian MacPartland.

Check out her album from the 70's "An Outing with the Bombay Bicycle Club" I believe....this is Marian exploring the outer reaches of abstract piano jazz. From stride to abstract, she's been there through it all. She's very old now, she is the grande dame of piano jazz and still plays wonderfully. In her Piano Jazz show, she interviews and plays with Jazz Musicians of all ages, one each week. I LOVE this show.


Bless You, Marian MacPartland.