McPartland displays an ageless agility

All the plastic surgery, make-up and careful lighting in the world can’t persuade a motion picture camera to reproduce aging actors in the images of their youth. But it’s different for musicians, whose image -- via their music -- can remain timeless.

Pianist Marian McPartland is a prime example. On Monday night at the Jazz Bakery, the veteran jazz artist, who will celebrate her 85th birthday in March, offered a program as vibrant and alive as anything she’s done over the course of her nearly seven-decade career.

Elegantly garbed in a sparkling evening jacket and black pants, McPartland was a small but spry figure, fully in command of the stage, wittily introducing each of her numbers. Her hands -- despite her sardonic reference to arthritis -- moved with smooth precision across the keyboard, easily shifting from rhapsodic arpeggios to brightly swinging bebop lines. In every piece, her soloing was enriched by a sophisticated sense of chordal harmony, bringing unexpected musical density to even the most familiar melodies.

McPartland has become well known as the result of her National Public Radio “Piano Jazz� program, now heading toward its 25th anniversary. But she was a well-established jazz artist long before the show’s kickoff in 1978. Always a versatile player, she has become even more eclectic in recent years, perhaps as a result of her encounters with the many diverse musical stylists who have been guests on her show.

Her Bakery program, for example, included standards such as “Sweet Lorraine� and “All the Things You Are� -- the latter performed with an arranged segment in which the theme was delivered in Baroque contrapuntal style. But she also offered Duke Ellington’s rarely heard “Warm Valley,� Billy Strayhorn’s jauntily swinging “Rain Check� and, even more surprisingly, Ornette Coleman’s rhythmically quirky “Ramblin’.�

As a closer, McPartland asked for requests from the audience and, receiving a few, combined three standards -- “Laura,� “Emily� and “Green Dolphin Street� -- into a seamlessly integrated medley.

McPartland’s performance, delivered before an overflow crowd (and repeated on Tuesday), was enhanced by the steady presence of bassist Bill Douglass and drummer Scott Davis. But the unquestioned star of the evening was the ever-youthful jazz of a remarkable octogenarian.