I’m trying to get the record that I made at my birthday party last year, trying to get that out, and the lawyers are diddling around with it and it probably won’t be out until next year. I don’t know.

McPartland’s remark captures the mundane, often frustrating reality behind jazz documentation: even when a performance is successfully recorded, releasing it can be delayed by rights clearances, contracts, and other legal negotiations. The quote also conveys her characteristically dry, understated tone—she frames a potentially significant artifact (“the record that I made at my birthday party”) as something stalled by lawyers “diddling around,” ending with a shrugging uncertainty (“I don’t know”). Implicitly, it contrasts the spontaneity of live jazz—especially a celebratory birthday session—with the slow machinery of the music business that can keep such moments from reaching listeners for years.