The Rothschild behind Thelonius Monk

What?

She's known as the Jazz Baroness. Charlie Parker died in her apartment. She lived with 306 cats. Twenty-four songs were written for her. She raced Miles Davis down Fifth Avenue. She went to prison so [Monk] wouldn't have to…

Who was this woman?

Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter, or Nica as she was known, was a true Rothschild, although the family disowned her.

On her way to the airport after a visit to New York, Nica stopped to visit a friend, the jazz pianist Teddy Wilson, who played her a recording of "Round Midnight" by a then unknown jazz pianist, Thelonious Monk. Unable to believe her ears, she listened to it 20 times in a row and was bewitched. Having missed her plane, she never went home again. Abandoning her husband and five children, she moved into a suite at the Stanhope hotel and set about trying to meet the man who had made this extraordinary record.

Hannah Rothschild has written a book about her family's black sheep, and in telling the story of Hannah's fascination with Nica, interviewer Rachel Cooke tells us as much again about the whole, rather bizarre, famous family. Despite being a big Monk fan, we knew nothing about the Baroness (but then again, we tend to mostly listen to the music, not the tales out of school). But this is huge. She really did take the rap for marijuana found in the car when she was driving with Monk, at a time when just driving around with as a mixed couple (Hannah doubts that they were intimate) was crime enough.

This is a most amazing article. Nice and long, for the weekend. Hannah Rothschild on Nica: 'I saw a woman who knew where she belonged'
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