Steely Dan on Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz Radio Broadcast

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Piano Jazz was a weekly one-hour radio show produced and distributed by National Public Radio. It began on June 4, 1978, and was hosted by jazz pianist Marian McPartland until 2011. It is the longest-running cultural program on NPR.

About Marian McPartland
In the late '60s, she started spinning jazz records on a New York radio station where other pianists would drop by the studio unannounced, just to chat.

A casual hello became a regular program in April 1979, when McPartland and South Carolina ETV Radio launched Piano Jazz. Her first on-air guest was the late Billy Taylor, also a pianist and NPR jazz host.

"It seemed as if every opportunity that came her way in the past prepared her for being a radio host," de Barros says. "She had researched other people's styles, so she had questions that she wanted to ask. All of those skills were in place, and she was ready for the opportunity that came to her."

McPartland said the conversations themselves were very much like jazz, spontaneous and free-flowing.

"It's so easy to make it a conversation, and you don't know where it's going to lead," McPartland said. "The whole thing is so improvised, you really don't know where it's going to go."

Along the way, McPartland also became a mentor to many young pianists. Geri Allen, one of those pianists, says she hears something familiar to musicians when she listens to Piano Jazz.

"It's a very personal exchange that only happens to musicians on the bandstand," Allen says. "But to have it opened up to the fans, I think it helps to create even more of an understanding [of] what that whole experience of improvising is about." - NPR