Produced for the BBC and directed by her great-grand niece Hannah Rothschild, The Jazz Baroness focuses on the life and influence of Pannonica de Koenigswarter (Nica for short), a wealthy child of the Rothschild financial empire who developed an unlikely relationship with pianist Thelonious Monk years before jazz music had reached any level of acceptance in well-regarded society.
The anti-black hostility of the 1950s coupled with the vast chasm between their socio-economic backgrounds -- he the child of sharecroppers with a history of mental illness and she the daughter of a German Jewish family that the British monarchy once asked for a loan -- inevitably made the very existence of their coupling somewhat of a spectacle. But The Jazz Baroness emphasizes how much common ground Monk and Nica found in love of music and how his (undiagnosed) illnesses and constant state of poverty fed her desire to be seen as a caretaker after having spent her childhood and young adulthood in a cage made of spun gold.
The film employs interviews with several musicians, writers and various scenesters of the New York jazz scene from the 1950s through the 70s including Quincy Jones, Thelonious Monk Junior, Clint Eastwood, Sonny Rollins and Dan Morgenstern. Helen Mirren narrates letters written to friends, giving some insight to Nica's inner life. There is also rare super-8 footage shot by band members of Monk and Nica chatting as well as live recordings of Nica introducing Monk's performances and Monk sweetly crooning to her from the stage.
The excrutiatingly proper Rothschild family were so mortified by the heiress's decision to ditch her husband and five children and take up with a group of black musicians, that she had all but been written out of the family's legacy. Early on Director Rothschild also expresses feelings of inadequacy about the expectations of her high society life and as a film-maker approaches her subject with the generosity of a curious progeny rather than an investigator. But Rothschild also takes great pride in the accomplishments of her family, even as she conveys disappointment with their treatment of Nica. One of the key interviews representing the clan is a great aunt who recounts how many of their family members were brutally killed in the Holocaust. Assembled alongside a considerable amount of wealth porn to help us understand the virtual Versailles the Rothschilds had to abandon to move to the States and the militaristic dedication they had to maintaining their previous way of life.
The Jazz Baroness provides insight into how the culture and political climate of the time impacted Nica and Monk's unlikely relationship and purposely leaves aside any (seemingly) obvious issues of drug abuse, child abandonment or infidelity. This lends a sweetness to the film that feels absent in a lot of music and art history documentaries, especially of those that center on the non-central figures of the scene.
RIYL: Elevator to the Gallows, Marie Antoinette, Bird (Eastwood), Jazz (Burns), Scott Walker: 30th Century Man.
The Jazz Baroness screens at the Reel Music festival in Portland this weekend.
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