Nica de Koenigswarter

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Baroness Pannonica "Nica" de Koenigswarter, born Kathleen Annie Pannonica Rothschild, (10 December 1913 – 30 November 1988), was a British bebop jazz enthusiast and member of the prominent Rothschild international financial dynasty.

Contents 1 Personal 2 Career 2.1 Jazz 2.2 Literature 3 Media depictions 3.1 Film 3.2 Radio 3.3 Television 4 References and bibliography 5 External links

[edit] Personal

Koenigswarter was the daughter of Charles Rothschild and Rozsika Edle Rothschild (née von Wertheimstein). The name "Pannonica" identifies several plants of the Pannonian plain that support butterflies and moths, a great interest of her father's. She was the niece of Walter Rothschild, the 2nd Baron Rothschild, and her brother Victor Rothschild became the 3rd Baron Rothschild. (According to thepeerage.com, Koenigswarter was granted the rank of the daughter of a baron on 15 March 1938.^[1]) Her sister Miriam Louisa Rothschild was a distinguished zoologist.

In 1935 she married the French diplomat Baron Jules de Koenigswarter, later a Free French hero. She worked for Charles de Gaulle during World War II. The couple separated in 1951 and she moved to New York City, renting a suite at the Hotel Stanhope on Fifth Avenue. Koenigswarter and her husband eventually divorced in 1956.^[2]

Koenigswarter died in 1988 at the age of 74. She had five children, two grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

[edit] Career

[edit] Jazz

In New York, Koenigswarter became a friend and patron of many pioneer jazz musicians, hosting jam sessions in her suite. She is sometimes referred to as the "bebop baroness" or "jazz baroness" because of her patronage of Thelonious Monk and Charlie Parker. After Parker's death at the Stanhope in 1955, the management asked her to leave, and she moved to the Bolivar Hotel at 230 Central Park West, a place commemorated in Thelonious Monk's 1956 tune "Ba-lue Bolivar Ba-lues-are".

She was introduced to Thelonious Monk by jazz pianist/composer Mary Lou Williams in Paris while attending the "Salon du Jazz 1954", and championed his work in the USA, wrote the liner notes for his 1962 Columbia album Criss-Cross, and even took the charges when she and Monk were caught with marijuana by police. After Monk ended his public performances he retired to Nica's house in Weehawken, New Jersey and died there in 1982.

Gigi Gryce's "Nica's Tempo", Sonny Clark's "Nica", Horace Silver's "Nica's Dream", Kenny Dorham's "Tonica", Kenny Drew's "Blues for Nica", Freddie Redd's "Nica Steps Out", Barry Harris's "Inca", Tommy Flanagan's "Thelonica" and Thelonious Monk's "Pannonica" were all named after her.

[edit] Literature

In October 2006 the French company Buchet Chastel published Koenigswarter's book Les musiciens de jazz et leurs trois vœux (The Jazz Musicians and their Three Wishes). Compiled between 1961 and 1966, it is a book of interviews with 300 musicians who told her what their "three wishes" would be, and is accompanied by her Polaroid photographs. The book was edited for publication by Nadine de Koenigswarter, whom Koenigswarter always introduced to people as her granddaughter. Nadine de Koenigswarter was in fact Koenigswarter's great-niece.^[3] An English-language version is currently available in paperback (Three Wishes: an Intimate Look at Jazz Greats).

[edit] Media depictions

[edit] Film

Koenigswarter was played by Diane Salinger in the 1988 Clint Eastwood film Bird, and she herself appeared in the Eastwood-produced film Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser (1988).

[edit] Radio

The Jazz Baroness,^[4] a radio documentary profile of Nica de Koenigswarter, written and directed by her great-niece Hannah Rothschild, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 12 February 2008.^[5]

[edit] Television

In April, 2009, a BBC television portrait entitled, like the previous radio programme, The Jazz Baroness was broadcast on the television channel BBC Four. ^[6]

[edit] References and bibliography

• Kastin, David (2006). "Nica's Story: the Life and Legend of the Jazz Baroness," Popular Music & Society, Volume 29, Number 3, July, 2006, pp. 279-298
• Montgomery-Massingberd, Hugh (1996) "The Daily Telegraph Book of Obituaries: a Celebration of Eccentric Lives." London: Pan

[edit] External links

• Nica De Koenigswarter at the Internet Movie Database
• ""Les trois voeux de Pannonica" - book review in French". http://www.lesoir.be/culture/musiques/2006/12/28/article_musique_un_superbe_et.shtml. 
• "New York Times obituary". http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE7D71F3DF931A35751C1A96E948260. 
• "Nica's Story: the Life and Legend of the Jazz Baroness". http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-15890352_ITM. 
• "Three Wishes: an Intimate Look at Jazz Greats - New York Times book review in English". http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/19/arts/music/19sing.html?ref=arts.