Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture > Video Oral History Gallery

Video Gallery Clip Transcript: Marian McPartland

I remember he had Joe Benjamin on bass, I remember that because he invited me up to play and I said oh I've never played with Joe Benjamin before. He managed to make something suggestive out of that, he had the whole band dying of laughing. Anyway, he was like that I mean it was fun. I remember one night going down to Birdland and you could see he was coming down the stairs because it was very brightly lit and I was walking down because I was going to the club and he was on the bandstand and he says here comes Marian McPartland, that [polkitouetous] purveyor of tonal zest. Oh God, I've never heard anything like that before or since. I mean, I think what I loved was his way of speaking and his wonderful way of annouciating, I just everybody should speak like Duke Ellingotn and have his vocabulary.