Piano Jazz Taped for Television

National Public Radio’s Piano Jazz and its charming host, Marian McPartland, are reaching beyond the land of cappuccino-sipping NPR listeners and heading straight for the star-making medium of TV. Well, OK, it’s just PBS, but it still gives the over 20-year-old show an opportunity to appeal to a wider audience.

McPartland, 83, and her buddy Dave Brubeck, 80, filmed the first-ever Piano Jazz for television on Fri. Aug. 24 in Columbia, S.C. McPartland hopes it’s the first of many such TV events for the radio hit. McPartland and Brubeck ran through a litany of standards, trading leads with ease and joy. “I may slow down a little bit, having had a couple of physical problems like hip replacements,” McPartland told Associate Press, “but that doesn’t affect my mental capacity at all.”

The program is scheduled to air nationally on PBS stations next year.

Originally Published August 27, 2001