Creativity Quote by Marian McPartland

McPartland’s line lands like the cleanest kind of flex: the refusal to fetishize gear. In jazz, where musicians and fans can treat instruments like holy relics, “I’d just as soon” is a quietly radical shrug. She’s saying the magic isn’t trapped in a brand name or a particular room; it’s in the player’s hands, ears, and time feel. Steinway and Yamaha aren’t random picks, either. They’re the shorthand for two different myths: Steinway as old-world prestige and concert-hall legitimacy, Yamaha as modern reliability and workhorse consistency. McPartland flattens that status hierarchy with a sentence that sounds almost offhand, which is the point. Taste, she implies, is portable.

The subtext is also gendered, even if she doesn’t spell it out. As a woman who spent decades proving she belonged on bandstands and in studios, she’s not interested in yet another gatekeeping ritual about the “right” piano. The line reads like a practical musician talking back to the kind of romanticized purism that often polices who gets taken seriously.

Context matters: McPartland was a broadcaster, accompanist, and improviser who played everywhere from clubs to radio studios, often on whatever piano was available. The quote carries the ethos of the working artist: adaptability as a form of authority. It’s not anti-craft; it’s pro-skill. Great players don’t need a museum piece to tell the truth. They just need 88 keys that answer back.