Marian McPartland At 90

McPartland — who’ll celebrate her 90th birthday with a night-before all-star performance-party tomorrow at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, has been known not only as a superb jazz pianist but also as host of ‘Piano Jazz,’ the longest-running national performance program on National Public Radio.

1,750 Bands, 12,500 People

“Yet South by Southwest is more than a marathon audition. It’s a chance for social networking in real time and space. The exhilaration of so many performances in such a short time is a morale booster for both business people and fans, and an annual reminder that the fortunes and misfortunes of the recording business don’t stop the music.”

$100 Million Temptation For The NY Public Library

“Bookstores, having successfully imitated libraries, might now be emulated in turn. The Fifth Avenue library’s character could end up transformed by that commercial model. This great free library, in which generations of immigrants and aspirants had schooled themselves and found their ambitions ennobled, would be subject to ‘democratization,’ as one library official put it.”