0:00:02 > 0:00:09This programme contains very strong language
0:00:15 > 0:00:17'Good evening, everybody.
0:00:17 > 0:00:21'This is Nica's Tempo and tonight,
0:00:21 > 0:00:26'we're coming to you direct from the Five Spot Cafe.
0:00:26 > 0:00:29'And that beautiful music you hear
0:00:29 > 0:00:33'is coming from Thelonious Monk and his Quartet.'
0:00:33 > 0:00:36JAZZ PIANO MUSIC
0:00:45 > 0:00:47'Hi, everybody.
0:00:47 > 0:00:50'Very glad to be here today.
0:00:50 > 0:00:53'I would like to play a little tune
0:00:53 > 0:00:58'I just composed not so long ago, entitled Pannonica.
0:00:58 > 0:01:00'It was named after...
0:01:00 > 0:01:02'this beautiful lady here,
0:01:02 > 0:01:05'I think her father gave her that name...
0:01:08 > 0:01:11'..after a butterfly...
0:01:11 > 0:01:15'that he tried to catch. I don't think he caught the butterfly.
0:01:15 > 0:01:19'But anyway, here's the number I composed, named after her.
0:01:19 > 0:01:20'Pannonica.'
0:01:22 > 0:01:24MUSIC: "Pannonica" by Thelonious Monk
0:01:58 > 0:02:02This is the story of a love affair between a man and woman,
0:02:02 > 0:02:06whose background and experiences, whose culture and class,
0:02:06 > 0:02:07were so different
0:02:07 > 0:02:12that the chances of their even meeting was extremely unlikely.
0:02:12 > 0:02:15She was Pannonica Rothschild,
0:02:15 > 0:02:19a British-born heiress from a powerful, wealthy, Jewish dynasty.
0:02:23 > 0:02:28He, Thelonious Sphere Monk, was the descendant of West African
0:02:28 > 0:02:33slaves, and his only material advantage was musical genius.
0:02:35 > 0:02:37After their first meeting in 1954,
0:02:37 > 0:02:42Monk and Nica were hardly ever apart, and Monk lived here,
0:02:42 > 0:02:45in Nica's house, for the last 10 years of his life.
0:02:59 > 0:03:03'She was my great-aunt, but I'd never even heard of her
0:03:03 > 0:03:07'until I spotted her name in our family records.
0:03:07 > 0:03:11'But no one could, or would, tell me much about Nica.
0:03:11 > 0:03:17'Except that she'd decided that the life she was born into wasn't for her.
0:03:17 > 0:03:20'And she'd reinvented herself in another continent.
0:03:22 > 0:03:27'From an early age, I felt I couldn't fit into my illustrious family, and
0:03:27 > 0:03:31'would never live up to their high expectations - real or imaginary.
0:03:31 > 0:03:35'Was Nica a possible role model for me?
0:03:35 > 0:03:39'Could her life show me some options, and another way to live?
0:03:41 > 0:03:45'But the first thing I had to do was to find out more about the life
0:03:45 > 0:03:50'that Nica was born into, and what it was she was leaving behind.'
0:03:50 > 0:03:54You have two minutes on the history of the House of Rothschild, starting now.
0:03:54 > 0:03:57Which Rothschild lent £4 million to Disraeli
0:03:57 > 0:04:00- for the purchase of Suez Canal shares?- Lionel.
0:04:00 > 0:04:03Correct. Which Buckinghamshire chateau did the French architect
0:04:03 > 0:04:07Destailleur design for Ferdinand de Rothschild in the late 1870s?
0:04:07 > 0:04:11- Waddesdon.- Correct. Which part of the House of Commons procedure prevented
0:04:11 > 0:04:16Lionel, elected MP in 1847, from taking his seat for 11 years?
0:04:16 > 0:04:19- The oath of abjugation. - Yes - he refused to take it.
0:04:19 > 0:04:22In the 1880s, in which famous London street did the Rothschilds
0:04:22 > 0:04:24own four mansions at the same time?
0:04:24 > 0:04:26- Piccadilly.- Correct.
0:04:26 > 0:04:30Which vineyard in the Medoc region did Baron James purchase in 1868?
0:04:30 > 0:04:32- Lafite.- Correct.
0:04:32 > 0:04:35'It would be many years before I could create a quiz about Nica.
0:04:35 > 0:04:38'How many cats did Nica own?'
0:04:38 > 0:04:41I think it was 306.
0:04:41 > 0:04:45'Which legendary jazz musician died in Nica's apartment?'
0:04:45 > 0:04:46Charlie Parker.
0:04:46 > 0:04:48'What did Nica serve from a teapot?'
0:04:48 > 0:04:50Scotch.
0:04:50 > 0:04:54'When she was a child, who taught Nica magic tricks?'
0:04:55 > 0:04:57Einstein.
0:05:00 > 0:05:05'How were the early Rothschilds portrayed in an Oscar-nominated film?'
0:05:05 > 0:05:11If anything should happen, all that money - 10,000...
0:05:11 > 0:05:15'Who asked Nica's grandfather for a significant loan?'
0:05:15 > 0:05:21The Royal Family came to your grandfather and said...
0:05:21 > 0:05:23crying the blues, begging...
0:05:23 > 0:05:27And you laid the bread on so he could beat Napoleon. Right?
0:05:27 > 0:05:30And threw in the Suez Canal.
0:05:30 > 0:05:33It changed the world.
0:05:33 > 0:05:35But that was over in Europe.
0:05:35 > 0:05:39I'm your President, I tell people who you are.
0:05:41 > 0:05:43She's a billionaire!
0:05:43 > 0:05:45One of the Rothschilds.
0:05:45 > 0:05:49Your aunt fell in love with my dad.
0:05:49 > 0:05:51I have no doubt about that.
0:05:51 > 0:05:56I feel like he supplied emphasis for her coming to America.
0:06:06 > 0:06:11She was profoundly moved by his music and his personality -
0:06:11 > 0:06:14he was a good-looking cat, she was a hotty.
0:06:14 > 0:06:17MUSIC:
0:06:46 > 0:06:49'I didn't meet Nica until 1984.
0:06:49 > 0:06:52'I cold-called her from a phone-box in New York.
0:06:52 > 0:06:55'"Hi", I said nervously, "I'm your great-niece".
0:06:55 > 0:07:01'"Hi", she replied, in a most un-great-aunt-like kind of way.
0:07:01 > 0:07:04'"Meet me at a club downtown at 1am".'
0:07:15 > 0:07:17'"How will I find it?" I asked.
0:07:17 > 0:07:20'"Just look out for the Bentley". And then she hung up.
0:07:24 > 0:07:27'The car was badly parked outside a small club,
0:07:27 > 0:07:30'and Nica sat alone at a table nearest the stage.
0:07:30 > 0:07:34'I warned her there were some tramps drinking beer in her Bentley outside.
0:07:34 > 0:07:36'"Oh good", she said.
0:07:36 > 0:07:39'"That means no one will steal it".'
0:07:39 > 0:07:42JAZZ MUSIC
0:09:01 > 0:09:04'Realising that I knew nothing about jazz,
0:09:04 > 0:09:08'Nica sent me albums, including this one, Thelonica -
0:09:08 > 0:09:14'a musical tribute to her relationship with Monk, made by their mutual friend, Tommy Flanagan.
0:09:16 > 0:09:19'And here's another record, Monk's Brilliant Corners,
0:09:19 > 0:09:22'composed shortly after the two met,
0:09:22 > 0:09:26'and containing musical contributes to his new friend, Pannonica.
0:09:28 > 0:09:33'There are over 20 songs composed for Nica by different musicians.
0:09:33 > 0:09:34'Real glamour, I reckon,
0:09:34 > 0:09:37'isn't about Bentleys or fur coats or silver dishes,
0:09:37 > 0:09:41'it's about being able to walk down 52nd Street
0:09:41 > 0:09:42'and hear, in one night,
0:09:42 > 0:09:47'so many great musicians play tunes dedicated to you.
0:09:53 > 0:09:56'But four years after we met, Nica died,
0:09:56 > 0:10:01'leaving so many unposed, unanswered questions.
0:10:01 > 0:10:04'None of her five children wish to talk to me about their mother.
0:10:04 > 0:10:07'Nor did other members of my family.'
0:10:07 > 0:10:11'What do you, Hannah, want to achieve by your film?
0:10:11 > 0:10:14'Is it just publicity?'
0:10:15 > 0:10:19'Are you sure you're going to be all right with the family if you
0:10:19 > 0:10:21'endeavour to get through this?'
0:10:21 > 0:10:23I don't know if I'm going to be all right.
0:10:23 > 0:10:24But I think it has to be told.
0:10:24 > 0:10:26Sure, it should be.
0:10:26 > 0:10:30But I'm saying, somebody's not going to like this.
0:10:30 > 0:10:34'But then, the Rothschilds had to be good at keeping secrets.
0:10:34 > 0:10:38'Secrets kept them alive in the pogroms. And in the ghettos.
0:10:38 > 0:10:40'And during the Holocaust.
0:10:40 > 0:10:42'Secrets helped them create a great fortune.
0:10:46 > 0:10:49'But Nica wasn't that secretive.
0:10:49 > 0:10:51'She gave interviews.
0:10:51 > 0:10:53'She wrote about her experiences.
0:10:53 > 0:10:55'She tried to publish her photographs.
0:10:55 > 0:10:58'And she appears in this documentary, Straight No Chaser.
0:11:04 > 0:11:09'I wondered if there was one catalyst, one event that inspired
0:11:09 > 0:11:13'Nica to leave everything familiar and start a new life in New York.
0:11:15 > 0:11:18'One day, a lost interview appeared.
0:11:18 > 0:11:22'Sitting in a New York hotel room, I heard Nica telling the producer
0:11:22 > 0:11:26'Bruce Ricker about the moment that changed her life.'
0:11:27 > 0:11:30It was in the late 1940s.
0:11:30 > 0:11:31I was on my way back to Mexico,
0:11:31 > 0:11:35where I was living with my husband and family at that time.
0:11:35 > 0:11:40On my way to the airport, I stopped off to see my friend, Teddy Wilson.
0:11:40 > 0:11:43He said, "Have you heard this record, Round Midnight?"
0:11:43 > 0:11:46Well, I'd never even heard of Thelonious.
0:11:46 > 0:11:49He said, "You can't leave without hearing it,"
0:11:49 > 0:11:52and he galloped off somewhere to get the record.
0:11:52 > 0:11:54JAZZ MUSIC
0:12:16 > 0:12:19I couldn't believe my ears.
0:12:19 > 0:12:23I'd never heard anything remotely like it.
0:12:23 > 0:12:27I made him play it 20 times in a row.
0:12:27 > 0:12:31Missed my plane, and never went back to Mexico.
0:12:43 > 0:12:47Driving around New York late at night, I wondered how one track
0:12:47 > 0:12:52on one record could have such a mesmerising effect on a person.
0:12:52 > 0:12:56Is it that Round Midnight, with its mournful, haunting chords,
0:12:56 > 0:12:59captures feelings of loneliness?
0:12:59 > 0:13:00Of being away from home?
0:13:00 > 0:13:02Of not belonging?
0:13:02 > 0:13:05Did it trigger something in my great aunt?
0:13:09 > 0:13:11She wasn't alone in loving this record.
0:13:11 > 0:13:17Round Midnight has become one of the most recorded jazz standards of all time.
0:13:20 > 0:13:24This was the vinyl version of a spell being cast on someone.
0:13:24 > 0:13:28Except that it's not a spell that arrives by itself.
0:13:28 > 0:13:30It's a spell that's assisted by you.
0:13:30 > 0:13:34So that you keep going back to it.
0:13:34 > 0:13:38She kept getting deeper and deeper into it as she heard it.
0:13:38 > 0:13:40From that point on,
0:13:40 > 0:13:45she had concluded that she was going to have to meet the guy
0:13:45 > 0:13:47who played this music.
0:13:48 > 0:13:55NICA: "But you see I didn't meet Thelonious until two years after that, in 1954.
0:13:55 > 0:14:00"I heard he was playing in Paris, so I got on a plane and I got there
0:14:00 > 0:14:04"just in time to hear his first overseas concert.
0:14:04 > 0:14:07"And I went backstage afterwards.
0:14:07 > 0:14:11"Mary Lou Williams introduced me to him.
0:14:11 > 0:14:15"But we hung out for the rest of the time he was there.
0:14:15 > 0:14:19"We had a ball for about a week."
0:14:19 > 0:14:23Until Monk's death 28 years later, they were hardly apart.
0:14:24 > 0:14:28If they brought the time machine out, that's one
0:14:28 > 0:14:30I would like to get in and go see.
0:14:30 > 0:14:32The time that they met.
0:14:32 > 0:14:34Because it had to be remarkable.
0:14:34 > 0:14:37Remarkable because...
0:14:37 > 0:14:39See, she was a complete European.
0:14:39 > 0:14:44Nothing about her was anything other than a European.
0:14:45 > 0:14:51Monk... See, he grew up in New York, but he was from North Carolina.
0:14:51 > 0:14:53Monk was a country negro.
0:14:53 > 0:14:57- ARCHIVE FOOTAGE: - The tenant farmers and their families live on the plantation.
0:14:57 > 0:14:59Each family has a small house,
0:14:59 > 0:15:03which they rent together with a section of land.
0:15:03 > 0:15:07A few tenants pay their rent in money.
0:15:07 > 0:15:10But most tenant farmers on the plantations
0:15:10 > 0:15:14work their portion of land in return for a share of the crop.
0:15:15 > 0:15:19'I found out that Monk, like Charlie Parker, Coltrane,
0:15:19 > 0:15:23'Dizzy Gillespie and others, was from the south.
0:15:23 > 0:15:26'And they brought their musical heritage with them
0:15:26 > 0:15:28'to the northern metropolises.
0:15:38 > 0:15:42'No-one knows which part of Africa Monk's ancestors come from.
0:15:42 > 0:15:47'But it is known he was born in 1917, in Rocky Mount,
0:15:47 > 0:15:48'North Carolina.
0:15:50 > 0:15:52'The church played a key role in his life,
0:15:52 > 0:15:57'and the strains of gospel, blues and stride suffuse all his music.
0:16:15 > 0:16:19'Monk's father was an amateur musician, a difficult husband
0:16:19 > 0:16:21'and a manic depressive, who was incarcerated
0:16:21 > 0:16:24'for the last two decades of his life in a mental asylum.
0:16:27 > 0:16:31'Barbara Monk, a formidable matriarch, kept the family together.
0:16:31 > 0:16:38'In 1922, she took her children to New York in search of a better life.
0:16:38 > 0:16:43'Monk lived with her until her death in 1955, a year after he met Nica.
0:16:58 > 0:17:02'Nica was born on December 10th, 1913.'
0:17:02 > 0:17:06MUSIC: "The Blue Danube" By Johann Strauss
0:17:36 > 0:17:39It seemed like it was another life.
0:17:47 > 0:17:51I remember her telling me that her father built a house
0:17:51 > 0:17:59somewhere on a hill. And the house was far away from the local town.
0:17:59 > 0:18:02I mean, she would say it so matter-of-factly.
0:18:02 > 0:18:05And I would say, "Wha-at?"
0:18:17 > 0:18:22NICA: "At Rothschild houses like Waddesdon, no-one bothered to pick cherries.
0:18:22 > 0:18:25"It was seen as far more elegant to have the gardeners carry the
0:18:25 > 0:18:31"actual trees around the table, so we could choose which fruit we wanted.
0:18:31 > 0:18:34"At breakfast, guests were offered a choice of Longhorn,
0:18:34 > 0:18:37"Shorthorn or Jersey milk with their tea.
0:18:40 > 0:18:45"It was quite normal to have kings, queens and world leaders to stay."
0:18:47 > 0:18:49'Here is King Edward.
0:18:49 > 0:18:53'And former Prime Ministers Winston Churchill, Anthony Asquith
0:18:53 > 0:18:56'and Arthur Balfour.
0:18:56 > 0:18:58'And here is George V.
0:18:58 > 0:19:02'And on the opposite page, Pannonica Rothschild.'
0:19:06 > 0:19:10NICA: "My father, Charles, worked diligently, as was expected,
0:19:10 > 0:19:16"in our family bank, but was much happier studying the life-cycle of insects.
0:19:16 > 0:19:19"He met my mother hunting rare fleas and butterflies
0:19:19 > 0:19:21"in the Carpathian Mountains.
0:19:21 > 0:19:23"Rozsika was a famous beauty,
0:19:23 > 0:19:27"tennis champion and from an impoverished Jewish family.
0:19:27 > 0:19:31"We were all absolutely terrified of her."
0:19:35 > 0:19:39According to Monk, Charles Rothschild had called his daughter
0:19:39 > 0:19:41after a butterfly that he caught.
0:19:41 > 0:19:45So there was a chance that the original specimen might still be in
0:19:45 > 0:19:49the enormous Rothschild collection that used to be housed at Tring,
0:19:49 > 0:19:51Nica's childhood home.
0:20:21 > 0:20:26This was the gigantic collection that Lord Rothschild amassed.
0:20:28 > 0:20:32Collections that were more comprehensive and larger than our own.
0:20:50 > 0:20:54Now, this is roughly where we want to be for Pannonica.
0:20:56 > 0:21:00No, no, we've gone off beam again.
0:21:07 > 0:21:08Getting warm.
0:21:10 > 0:21:14Here we go. Here is Pannonica.
0:21:17 > 0:21:19There she is.
0:21:23 > 0:21:25This was collected in 1913.
0:21:25 > 0:21:301913, the year of Nica's birth.
0:21:36 > 0:21:39'I'd been expecting something more dazzling,
0:21:39 > 0:21:43'not this delicate little creature whose pale yellow wings
0:21:43 > 0:21:46'looked like they had been dipped in Chateau Lafitte.
0:21:47 > 0:21:50'What I certainly wasn't expecting
0:21:50 > 0:21:54'was to find out that it wasn't a butterfly at all, it was a moth.'
0:21:58 > 0:22:01As the daughter of an obsessive entomologist,
0:22:01 > 0:22:03Nica would have known she was a moth,
0:22:03 > 0:22:07but perhaps she thought butterflies sounded more romantic,
0:22:07 > 0:22:09or perhaps it suited her not
0:22:09 > 0:22:16to give everything away, to preserve the mystery, her version of secrets.
0:22:21 > 0:22:25I asked my father to tell me about those four children -
0:22:25 > 0:22:28his father Victor and his aunts.
0:22:31 > 0:22:34There was Nica, who...
0:22:34 > 0:22:38was eccentric and developed this tremendous love
0:22:38 > 0:22:42of jazz and was one of the great patronesses of jazz
0:22:42 > 0:22:46of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s and beyond.
0:22:48 > 0:22:54Then came my father, Victor, who was a distinguished scientist
0:22:54 > 0:22:57and ran the think-tank for the British government.
0:22:57 > 0:23:02Then there was Liberty, who was schizophrenic, I'm afraid.
0:23:04 > 0:23:10Then the eldest was Miriam, who was a great naturalist and scientist.
0:23:20 > 0:23:24- MIRIAM ROTHSCHILD: - We were brought up in great luxury,
0:23:24 > 0:23:30but no liberty and a lot of discipline and regular things
0:23:30 > 0:23:35and dull food in the nursery and so forth, very immaculately cooked.
0:23:40 > 0:23:45Monday was the fish, Tuesday was the egg, Wednesday was the fish,
0:23:45 > 0:23:50Thursday was the egg, Friday was the fish, Saturday was the egg.
0:23:50 > 0:23:52It was always the same.
0:23:56 > 0:24:02We were dressed - first a vest and we had a thing called a bodice and
0:24:02 > 0:24:07there was a ribbon round the waist which threaded in and out
0:24:07 > 0:24:11and I had blue ribbons and my sister had pink ribbons.
0:24:11 > 0:24:13Then we went along to see my mother,
0:24:13 > 0:24:18then we knelt down by her bed and said our prayers which always ended,
0:24:18 > 0:24:22"And make me a good little girl, Amen."
0:24:22 > 0:24:25That was a ritual which happened every day.
0:24:25 > 0:24:28We were kept very,
0:24:28 > 0:24:31very secluded and sheltered.
0:24:33 > 0:24:36The lessons we had with the governess - my father
0:24:36 > 0:24:40detested schools, which he thought were like David Copperfield,
0:24:40 > 0:24:45so one had absolutely no education at all.
0:24:45 > 0:24:49NICA: "We were moved from one great country house to another
0:24:49 > 0:24:53"in the germless community of reserved Pullman coaches,
0:24:53 > 0:24:58"while being guarded night and day by a regiment of nurses,
0:24:58 > 0:25:04"governesses, tutors, footmen, valets, chauffeurs and grooms.
0:25:06 > 0:25:11"Unlike me, Thelonious was a child prodigy, as his report
0:25:11 > 0:25:17"shows, winning a scholarship to this prestigious Peter Stuyvesant school.
0:25:17 > 0:25:19"Musically he was a genius -
0:25:19 > 0:25:24"a useful skill for an African American whose options were limited."
0:25:26 > 0:25:30I had to decide whether I was going to be a musician or be a pimp,
0:25:30 > 0:25:31one of the two.
0:25:31 > 0:25:35At 9, 10, 11 years old, I used to shine shoes.
0:25:35 > 0:25:38That's how I bought my first set of drums.
0:25:46 > 0:25:49I'd go out on a Wednesday and Saturday from school.
0:25:49 > 0:25:52I'd stay out all day Saturday until I made a dollar.
0:25:58 > 0:26:03In some respects, Nica's own options were just as limited.
0:26:03 > 0:26:05Youth, for Rothschild women,
0:26:05 > 0:26:08was just a waiting room for marriage and motherhood.
0:26:08 > 0:26:11They were barred from working in the bank
0:26:11 > 0:26:13and university wasn't an option.
0:26:13 > 0:26:18At 18, Nica was launched into society at a whirligig of parties
0:26:18 > 0:26:21known to some as the London season.
0:26:21 > 0:26:24Her mission was to go husband hunting.
0:26:24 > 0:26:29There were four dances a week - Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.
0:26:29 > 0:26:32In a way it was just like going to the office, I suppose.
0:26:32 > 0:26:36You couldn't do anything else, it was a full-time job.
0:26:36 > 0:26:39It was just what happened.
0:26:39 > 0:26:44I loved it. Does that sound very bad? My sister
0:26:44 > 0:26:48guiltily enjoyed it, although she was tremendously...
0:26:48 > 0:26:53against what the French called sins sexuelle de la recherche,
0:26:53 > 0:26:55anything of that sort.
0:26:57 > 0:26:59And she couldn't help enjoying it.
0:26:59 > 0:27:02My sister Unity even went to dances.
0:27:02 > 0:27:04She used to take a rat with her.
0:27:04 > 0:27:06What did she do with the rat?
0:27:06 > 0:27:08It was her pet rat, it was always around.
0:27:10 > 0:27:13From the word go, Nica fell under
0:27:13 > 0:27:18music's spell and her first love was the band leader Jack Harris.
0:27:20 > 0:27:24NICA: "There was a sax player called Bob Wise, taught me to fly.
0:27:24 > 0:27:30"But not navigation, so I had to rely on roads and railways,
0:27:30 > 0:27:32"which was cool, if it was a clear day.
0:27:32 > 0:27:36"This horrified Jules, my future husband,
0:27:36 > 0:27:38"who was a stickler for the rules."
0:27:42 > 0:27:47The couple met at Le Touquet and conducted an airborne romance.
0:27:47 > 0:27:51Jules was a mining engineer, a banker, and also Jewish.
0:27:51 > 0:27:55He was 10 years older and a widower, but was so sure about his
0:27:55 > 0:28:00affections for Nica that he proposed within three months.
0:28:01 > 0:28:06Nica ran away immediately to New York to consider his offer.
0:28:06 > 0:28:11It was the first of many times that she'd use the city as a refuge.
0:28:15 > 0:28:19And here is their wedding certificate from October 1935,
0:28:19 > 0:28:21found in City Hall, New York.
0:28:26 > 0:28:31The couple set up home in France at the Chateau Abondant
0:28:31 > 0:28:34near Normandy, where they started a family.
0:28:36 > 0:28:38HITLER SPEAKS GERMAN
0:28:51 > 0:28:54In the same year that their first son Patrick was born,
0:28:54 > 0:29:00the Nuremberg race laws stripping Jews of all rights was passed.
0:29:02 > 0:29:05Soon after Janka, their first daughter, was born,
0:29:05 > 0:29:10the Germans had entered Sudetenland and on one single night
0:29:10 > 0:29:14more than 1,000 synagogues were burned to the ground
0:29:14 > 0:29:20and 30,000 Jewish men were rounded up and taken to concentration camps.
0:29:29 > 0:29:34One of our aunts was caught in the Holocaust.
0:29:34 > 0:29:39She had a terrible time, she was 80 and blind
0:29:39 > 0:29:44and she was taken off into a death train and when they arrived
0:29:44 > 0:29:49at Auschwitz they were pulled out of the train by guards with meat hooks,
0:29:49 > 0:29:50and beaten to death.
0:29:55 > 0:29:58As a member of the most prominent European Jewish family,
0:29:58 > 0:30:04Nica, by remaining in France, was in increasing physical danger.
0:30:04 > 0:30:08NICA: "When Jules went to war, he left me alone at the chateau
0:30:08 > 0:30:10"with a hand-drawn map.
0:30:10 > 0:30:14"I managed to escape with the children on one of the last boats.
0:30:14 > 0:30:16"Then I took them to America.
0:30:16 > 0:30:20"My mother in law refused to leave France.
0:30:20 > 0:30:23"She was captured, sent to Auschwitz,
0:30:23 > 0:30:25"where she died."
0:30:27 > 0:30:30In England, the government asked Nica's brother Victor,
0:30:30 > 0:30:32as head of the British jury,
0:30:32 > 0:30:36to give his response to the events unfolding in Europe.
0:30:36 > 0:30:39The Jews will do something they already do.
0:30:39 > 0:30:44They will help this country to be strong and able to resist anybody
0:30:44 > 0:30:45who tries to attack it.
0:30:45 > 0:30:49In fact, they will do their bit, like all good Englishmen should.
0:30:54 > 0:30:58NICA: "I left the children in Long Island and managed to smuggle myself on a
0:30:58 > 0:31:02"plane to Africa, where Jules was fighting with the Free French.
0:31:08 > 0:31:14"I enlisted as a private, driving ambulances, decoding broadcasting.
0:31:14 > 0:31:16"Then we were sent to Germany.
0:31:18 > 0:31:23"I caught the last days of the Reich, just before Hitler did himself in.
0:31:23 > 0:31:26"I had a luckier escape than many."
0:31:31 > 0:31:36One uncle survived, in Hungary, in a concentration camp,
0:31:36 > 0:31:41when he left he was six foot two and he weighed five stone,
0:31:41 > 0:31:44so you can imagine what he looked like.
0:31:44 > 0:31:47He came and lived with me in Oxford.
0:31:47 > 0:31:52Looking back, I really didn't ask him many questions,
0:31:52 > 0:31:55cos one was frightened of asking
0:31:55 > 0:31:58people from concentration camps questions,
0:31:58 > 0:32:01because it was difficult for them to speak of the horrors.
0:32:05 > 0:32:08Meanwhile, Monk, along with Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker,
0:32:08 > 0:32:11was cooking up a musical revolution called bebop.
0:32:11 > 0:32:15Music you couldn't dance, or sing, or even swing to -
0:32:15 > 0:32:18music that screamed of a new individualism.
0:32:18 > 0:32:21HE SCATS
0:32:28 > 0:32:30Right? Bebop.
0:32:30 > 0:32:33HE SCATS
0:32:33 > 0:32:34Right? They're different.
0:32:36 > 0:32:39Basically, that's the difference.
0:33:04 > 0:33:07People like Charlie Parker and Monk
0:33:07 > 0:33:12exemplified a great audience who didn't want to
0:33:12 > 0:33:18accept a lot of the things that jazz musicians were forced to accept.
0:33:22 > 0:33:26Bebop represented a change from the show business
0:33:26 > 0:33:31aspect of this great music.
0:33:32 > 0:33:36The people that played bebop wanted to be accepted...
0:33:38 > 0:33:45..as full-fledged human beings, not just talented artists.
0:33:54 > 0:33:57There was something about the way they played -
0:33:57 > 0:34:00that they didn't seem to care what the audience thought,
0:34:00 > 0:34:02you were there to listen.
0:34:02 > 0:34:05They didn't cater to the audience too much.
0:34:05 > 0:34:09America had just fought the war of freedom, and soldiers,
0:34:09 > 0:34:12black and white, had gone to liberate Europe.
0:34:12 > 0:34:16And yet, black soldiers returning to America could not enter the front
0:34:16 > 0:34:21door of the restaurant they were performing in.
0:34:21 > 0:34:26They couldn't sleep in white hotels when they performed
0:34:26 > 0:34:31on the bandstand of those hotels - they had to sleep in other hotels.
0:34:31 > 0:34:35There had to have been a phenomenal amount of rage,
0:34:35 > 0:34:39dissonance, and the artist's role is to call attention to that.
0:34:41 > 0:34:47Nica, somehow, years before everyone else, started to embrace it.
0:34:49 > 0:34:52Women had also fought for freedom,
0:34:52 > 0:34:55and were equally frustrated by the lack of change.
0:34:55 > 0:35:00'Carol, who is now Mrs Bill Johnson, took a general home economics course.
0:35:00 > 0:35:02'Not one which would lead to professional employment,
0:35:02 > 0:35:09'but one which fitted her for that very important career of being Mrs Johnson.'
0:35:10 > 0:35:12When the critic Nat Hentoff asked Nica why her marriage
0:35:12 > 0:35:19went wrong, she replied, "My husband liked military drum music.
0:35:19 > 0:35:24"He hated jazz. He used to break my records when I was late for dinner.
0:35:24 > 0:35:27"I was frequently late for dinner."
0:35:27 > 0:35:30She found more and more excuses to visit New York,
0:35:30 > 0:35:32and then she heard Thelonious Monk.
0:35:32 > 0:35:34JAZZ MUSIC
0:35:58 > 0:36:02But who was this mysterious Thelonious Monk?
0:36:02 > 0:36:05A man whose first language was silence.
0:36:05 > 0:36:10The pianist who seemed to attack the piano with every part of his body.
0:36:15 > 0:36:20Thelonious was the high priest or archbishop of bebop,
0:36:20 > 0:36:23but he was the father of modern jazz.
0:36:23 > 0:36:28Because it's the harmonic possibilities that
0:36:28 > 0:36:35Thelonious brought to the table that freed...the Charlie Parkers,
0:36:35 > 0:36:36and the John Coltranes
0:36:36 > 0:36:43and the Dizzy Gillespies from the chains of popular American music.
0:36:53 > 0:36:57Monk's bass player said, "Man,
0:36:57 > 0:37:01"I've played with piano players who play on all the white keys,
0:37:01 > 0:37:05"I've played with piano players who played on all the black keys,
0:37:05 > 0:37:07"but, man, I ain't never played with no mother
0:37:07 > 0:37:11"who played in-between the cracks." He was talking about Monk.
0:37:21 > 0:37:23APPLAUSE
0:37:24 > 0:37:29You could never tire of listening to someone like Monk because he's
0:37:29 > 0:37:31so imaginative and so unpredictable.
0:37:31 > 0:37:33He hits a note that you're not supposed to hit,
0:37:33 > 0:37:38when he runs out of those he bangs the keyboard with his elbow.
0:37:38 > 0:37:41And I'm sure someone like Nica, she would have been having that
0:37:41 > 0:37:45feeling all the time, and that's enough to make you want to stay.
0:37:47 > 0:37:49NICA: "What can I say?
0:37:49 > 0:37:52"If there are seven wonders in this world,
0:37:52 > 0:37:54"then I think Thelonious was the eighth.
0:37:56 > 0:38:00"He helped you see the music inside the music,
0:38:00 > 0:38:05"and his music itself helped me see possibilities in life and ways of
0:38:05 > 0:38:08"living that I never dreamed of."
0:38:08 > 0:38:14She believed he was a genius the first day she heard him play.
0:38:14 > 0:38:18And she never wavered from that
0:38:18 > 0:38:20one iota.
0:38:25 > 0:38:29She was there when the critics didn't get it,
0:38:29 > 0:38:33and half the musicians didn't get it.
0:38:33 > 0:38:39She got it. And I think that that was very important to her and I
0:38:39 > 0:38:42think that was very, very important to him, too.
0:38:42 > 0:38:44He loved her for that.
0:38:54 > 0:38:58Monk and Nica became a regular feature on the scene.
0:39:01 > 0:39:03We used to hang out a lot,
0:39:03 > 0:39:08and Monk and Nica would come to my house, and we'd go out,
0:39:08 > 0:39:10driving round, and after hours.
0:39:11 > 0:39:16And then they'd come by my house at all times - in the daytime.
0:39:18 > 0:39:24He was the high priest, and she was the Baroness!
0:39:24 > 0:39:27It was kind of a thing, you know?
0:39:28 > 0:39:32- Million dollars?- No, not quite.
0:39:32 > 0:39:36You can get somebody who can decipher that for you, you know?
0:39:36 > 0:39:37Tell you what it means.
0:39:37 > 0:39:41And what were the dynamics of Monk's marriage to Nellie?
0:39:43 > 0:39:48Thelonious was a family man, he loved Nellie.
0:39:48 > 0:39:55I do remember one day with him when we were sitting in a tea room,
0:39:55 > 0:40:00we stopped on the way from London to Bristol to get
0:40:00 > 0:40:06a cup of tea and a sandwich, and the sun was coming in the window
0:40:06 > 0:40:09and it picked up Nellie's face and
0:40:09 > 0:40:16Thelonious turns and looks at her and says, "You look like an angel."
0:40:16 > 0:40:19One of the most beautiful things I ever saw in my life,
0:40:19 > 0:40:20the way he said that.
0:40:20 > 0:40:24Cos Nellie was not a beautiful woman, I mean, she was a beautiful
0:40:24 > 0:40:30person and that beauty came through in her character,
0:40:30 > 0:40:34but she did everything for Thelonious.
0:40:34 > 0:40:36Whatever had to be done,
0:40:36 > 0:40:40she put up with every single thing, and he appreciated that.
0:40:40 > 0:40:44And did Monk and Nica have an affair?
0:40:44 > 0:40:47There's no evidence at all that they were lovers.
0:40:47 > 0:40:54I never saw any touchy-feely stuff, nothing like that, I swear to God.
0:40:54 > 0:40:57I don't know, and I don't care.
0:40:57 > 0:41:00Musicians would say, "Man, you sleeping with her?"
0:41:00 > 0:41:03And he would get so indignant and say,
0:41:03 > 0:41:05"Man, what's wrong with you?
0:41:05 > 0:41:08"I would never, never do that to my best friend.
0:41:08 > 0:41:11"Don't you even know what friendship means?"
0:41:13 > 0:41:21Nellie needed Nica to help deal with Thelonious' mental instability.
0:41:23 > 0:41:28He was bipolar, basically, and his condition was episodic,
0:41:28 > 0:41:31so there were times that Nellie just could not
0:41:31 > 0:41:33take the weight of caring for him.
0:41:34 > 0:41:37- Did Thelonious take drugs?- Yes.
0:41:37 > 0:41:39What kind of drugs did he take?
0:41:39 > 0:41:45Thelonious would take from marijuana, which is not even
0:41:45 > 0:41:50considered a drug, it was simply like a chewing gum,
0:41:50 > 0:41:55to heroin, I'd have to say that...
0:41:57 > 0:42:00..whether snorted or injected.
0:42:00 > 0:42:03I think he didn't do much injecting, I think he did mostly snorting.
0:42:05 > 0:42:11Not that much, my guess is not that much, but enough.
0:42:11 > 0:42:13He would look at things,
0:42:13 > 0:42:17he would often look up into the sky and mumble things,
0:42:17 > 0:42:20and that sounds like schizophrenic behaviour to me.
0:42:22 > 0:42:25A rush of noise coming in, it would seem to me.
0:42:25 > 0:42:29Manic depression, I don't think there was manic depression, but
0:42:29 > 0:42:33sometimes mental illness, I think, is a cocktail of these things.
0:42:33 > 0:42:37But when you see him getting up, doing a little dance...
0:42:37 > 0:42:39What's wrong with dancing?
0:42:39 > 0:42:42Is it crazy to dance?
0:42:42 > 0:42:44People dance every day
0:42:44 > 0:42:51all over the world, there's nothing crazy about dancing, is there?
0:42:58 > 0:43:00No, absolutely not.
0:43:04 > 0:43:07He would stay up, he wouldn't go to bed,
0:43:07 > 0:43:10he'd stay up three or four days in a row.
0:43:10 > 0:43:14And he'd be spinning around,
0:43:14 > 0:43:16different things like that.
0:43:17 > 0:43:23So people would stay out of his way, cos Monk was a large person.
0:43:25 > 0:43:30And I remember the baroness said something to me, she says,
0:43:30 > 0:43:32"He will never hurt you."
0:43:32 > 0:43:34And when she told me that...
0:43:37 > 0:43:40..I never worried.
0:43:40 > 0:43:43Because a lot of musicians, they would disappear.
0:43:57 > 0:44:01I began to see similarities rather than differences
0:44:01 > 0:44:03between Nica and Monk's stories.
0:44:03 > 0:44:07Nica's sister, Liberty, had schizophrenia and needed
0:44:07 > 0:44:10constant care and supervision throughout her whole life.
0:44:10 > 0:44:17Of course, both Monk and Nica's fathers suffered from mental problems.
0:44:17 > 0:44:24My father certainly had serious depressions
0:44:24 > 0:44:26when he was young.
0:44:26 > 0:44:29And he had...
0:44:29 > 0:44:33when he had encephalitis with his Spanish flu,
0:44:33 > 0:44:38he also, on top of it, had a serious depression.
0:44:38 > 0:44:40Well, he might have done.
0:44:40 > 0:44:43Anyone with that illness could get a depression.
0:44:44 > 0:44:47When my father killed himself,
0:44:47 > 0:44:53my mother decided that she'd never tell us that he'd committed suicide,
0:44:53 > 0:44:56and that he'd just died of a heart attack.
0:44:59 > 0:45:03And she said to me, the words she said to me, "This has been coming
0:45:03 > 0:45:08"on for a long time, as you know how ill he's been."
0:45:08 > 0:45:10And I accepted that because, my God,
0:45:10 > 0:45:15he had been ill, and I could quite well believe that. I was 15.
0:45:15 > 0:45:20My mother managed, with the influence the family had,
0:45:20 > 0:45:24to suppress the fact that he'd committed suicide in the newspapers.
0:45:24 > 0:45:26It never appeared.
0:45:31 > 0:45:34Did you ever talk about it after it happened?
0:45:34 > 0:45:36As a family?
0:45:36 > 0:45:39No. Never.
0:45:40 > 0:45:44And does this early heartbreak partly explain Nica's incredible
0:45:44 > 0:45:49love for an ailing Monk and her compassion for the other musicians?
0:45:51 > 0:45:55I would be hanging with Nica, and we would get in the car.
0:45:55 > 0:45:58She'd say, come on, let's go in the car. We have to go somewhere.
0:45:58 > 0:46:06And I can't tell you how many... mercy missions just short of
0:46:06 > 0:46:11ambulatory in their nature, to save musicians' lives.
0:46:11 > 0:46:15In every way you can imagine.
0:46:15 > 0:46:18Whether we were going to a pawnshop to retrieve a guy's instrument,
0:46:18 > 0:46:20or going to buy groceries because
0:46:20 > 0:46:23so and so didn't have food, or going to a rental office to pay
0:46:23 > 0:46:27somebody's rent because they were about to be thrown on the street,
0:46:27 > 0:46:29or going to the hospital to visit
0:46:29 > 0:46:32somebody because they didn't have anybody else to visit them,
0:46:32 > 0:46:38or going to help somebody get some food because their girlfriend just had a baby...
0:46:38 > 0:46:40I mean, the list goes on and on and on.
0:46:40 > 0:46:42It's so many different kinds of things.
0:46:42 > 0:46:50Every aspect of human existence that I saw musicians deal with,
0:46:50 > 0:46:56I saw them lean on Nica and I saw Nica respond.
0:46:58 > 0:47:03NICA: "I never sought it out - the role of freedom fighter, but once I got here,
0:47:03 > 0:47:06"I did see that an awful lot of help was needed.
0:47:06 > 0:47:11"And, well, I couldn't just stand by and watch."
0:47:16 > 0:47:19She was a fighter. Tough, tough lady.
0:47:19 > 0:47:23And, like I said, I think she found a cause.
0:47:23 > 0:47:26She was a woman who was ahead of her time.
0:47:26 > 0:47:28What's interesting about her is...
0:47:29 > 0:47:33..that she took a stand when it wasn't popular to do so.
0:47:33 > 0:47:37And that's what I meant about taking risks.
0:47:39 > 0:47:44Actually, she stands as a role-model,
0:47:44 > 0:47:47one of the early feminists.
0:47:49 > 0:47:55To not only assert her right to be herself,
0:47:55 > 0:48:02but to see herself as a person who fomented social change,
0:48:02 > 0:48:06and that social change was possible from her class.
0:48:16 > 0:48:17NICA: "When I first met Monk,
0:48:17 > 0:48:21"he'd lost his cabaret card and couldn't work in New York clubs.
0:48:21 > 0:48:26"The police took it away after some bogus drugs bust in 1951.
0:48:26 > 0:48:29"I put a beautiful piano in my suite
0:48:29 > 0:48:33"and he'd be up there all day long, playing the piano.
0:48:33 > 0:48:36"And then at night, we'd go out around the clubs.
0:48:36 > 0:48:39"And then all the musicians would come back with us
0:48:39 > 0:48:41"and we'd have these...
0:48:41 > 0:48:46"these fantastic jam sessions, until eight or nine the next morning.
0:48:46 > 0:48:48"There'd be Sonny Rollins,
0:48:48 > 0:48:52"Bud Powell, Blakey - all the cats were there."
0:48:55 > 0:48:58Society people would slum and go down here.
0:48:58 > 0:49:03Swing bands or jazz bands or what have you, but it wasn't as...
0:49:05 > 0:49:08With her, it was...
0:49:08 > 0:49:13She just embraced the whole culture of jazz
0:49:13 > 0:49:17and bop musicians, and the whole kind of rebelliousness of it.
0:49:17 > 0:49:22People of wealth and of a certain class,
0:49:22 > 0:49:27that lived on Fifth Avenue, like the Baroness did, just didn't
0:49:27 > 0:49:30socialise with jazz musicians.
0:49:30 > 0:49:34The majority of the opinions of jazz musicians
0:49:34 > 0:49:39is that they were drunks or drug addicts or sex maniacs.
0:49:39 > 0:49:43They were considered people with bad reputations,
0:49:43 > 0:49:47because, remember, jazz had just come out of the house of ill repute.
0:49:47 > 0:49:51But the attitude that Nica found most despicable
0:49:51 > 0:49:55in her adopted country was racial prejudice.
0:49:55 > 0:49:59I remember in Texas once, in 1951, finishing the job
0:49:59 > 0:50:04about twelve-thirty, one, and we had to drive until
0:50:04 > 0:50:08almost 6 o'clock in the morning to find a place to eat. To try to eat.
0:50:08 > 0:50:11We'd even send the driver in, because we went by one place,
0:50:11 > 0:50:15it was dawn by then, and we were driving through the town
0:50:15 > 0:50:18to check out a restaurant, and on top of the church,
0:50:18 > 0:50:22the top, the steeple of the biggest church in town had a rope around it
0:50:22 > 0:50:26and an effigy of a black dummy, hanging off of the church steeple.
0:50:26 > 0:50:29And we just said, "Keep going."
0:50:29 > 0:50:34Oh, that was...every day was like that.
0:50:34 > 0:50:37It's hard to believe that these memories belong to Quincy Jones,
0:50:37 > 0:50:42the influential composer, musician, Oscar-winner and activist.
0:50:42 > 0:50:46His wall of fame reminded me of Waddesdon and Tring,
0:50:46 > 0:50:48and Nica's childhood homes.
0:50:48 > 0:50:54And so I asked both Quincy and my great-aunt Miriam, Nica's sister,
0:50:54 > 0:50:56to examine the seeds of prejudice.
0:50:56 > 0:51:01The office boy has got to kick the cat downstairs.
0:51:01 > 0:51:05Everybody's got to have something below them
0:51:05 > 0:51:10That they can either bully or torment or kick downstairs
0:51:10 > 0:51:11like the office boy.
0:51:11 > 0:51:13It's just part of the human race and
0:51:13 > 0:51:17it's just unlucky if you happen to be Jewish, because you're one of the
0:51:17 > 0:51:22easiest things to kick downstairs, but next day it'll be the negroes,
0:51:22 > 0:51:26and the next day it'll be something else. They always need
0:51:26 > 0:51:30something on which to vent their...
0:51:30 > 0:51:34anger, really, at what life is like.
0:51:37 > 0:51:40It was part of a disease.
0:51:40 > 0:51:42A psychological disease.
0:51:44 > 0:51:48Make yourself feel like a giant by making other people midgets, you know?
0:51:50 > 0:51:52It's a cheap shot, you know?
0:51:52 > 0:51:55It was like, when she came over, they'd shout at her in her car.
0:51:55 > 0:52:01You know, "nigger lover", and all that, so she went to quite a bit.
0:52:01 > 0:52:05And we could appreciate what she was going over...going through.
0:52:05 > 0:52:08And in our own way, we would have fought to the death
0:52:08 > 0:52:10when we were with her, you know?
0:52:10 > 0:52:15If we were there and someone insulted her or something,
0:52:15 > 0:52:17they had to deal with all of us.
0:52:17 > 0:52:21But the main problem for Nica was not just that her friends were black.
0:52:21 > 0:52:23Many were also drug addicts.
0:52:23 > 0:52:28Heroin was part of their lifestyle, and the most famous junkie of all
0:52:28 > 0:52:33was Monk's co-founder of bebop, Charlie "Bird" Parker.
0:52:34 > 0:52:37And Charlie Parker was so excessive,
0:52:37 > 0:52:41because there were not many people you could find either in
0:52:41 > 0:52:45or out of the jazz world who would drink a half a gallon of wine
0:52:45 > 0:52:47and drop a handful of Benzedrine.
0:52:47 > 0:52:50You know, and shoot up dope the way he shot it up.
0:52:50 > 0:52:52So Charlie Parker was extreme.
0:52:54 > 0:52:55He courted death.
0:52:58 > 0:53:01Most people do not understand, you know?
0:53:01 > 0:53:04Charlie Parker was not a nice person.
0:53:04 > 0:53:08He did a lot of bad things to a lot of people.
0:53:08 > 0:53:11Part of it was the drugs.
0:53:11 > 0:53:13Part of it was his personality.
0:53:22 > 0:53:25Charlie Parker was one of the reasons that we got
0:53:25 > 0:53:28involved with the type of drug use that we were into.
0:53:30 > 0:53:35Him being our idol and his social impact on everybody.
0:53:35 > 0:53:41You know, we were like Charlie Parker's children, in a way.
0:53:41 > 0:53:44You know, all the young saxophone boys.
0:53:46 > 0:53:50NICA: "For all the adulation heaped upon him by fans and musicians,
0:53:50 > 0:53:53"Bird was lonely.
0:53:53 > 0:53:58"I saw him standing in front of Birdland in the pouring rain
0:53:58 > 0:54:01"and I was horrified. I asked him, "Why?"
0:54:01 > 0:54:03"And he said he had no place to go.
0:54:08 > 0:54:12"And when this happened, he'd ride the subways all night.
0:54:12 > 0:54:17"He'd ride a train to the end of the line and when he was ordered out,
0:54:17 > 0:54:20"he would go to another train ride back."
0:54:30 > 0:54:33Parker was supposed to go to Boston for an engagement.
0:54:33 > 0:54:35He stopped up there.
0:54:35 > 0:54:36He started vomiting blood,
0:54:36 > 0:54:40she called the doctor, they said, "You're too sick to travel."
0:54:40 > 0:54:42And he spent a couple of days there and,
0:54:42 > 0:54:46according to Nica's recollections, she and her daughter,
0:54:46 > 0:54:49who I guess was very young at the time, were just giving him
0:54:49 > 0:54:53endless amounts of water to drink and could not slake his thirst.
0:54:53 > 0:54:56He was sweating, he was sick, he had all sorts of complications.
0:54:56 > 0:54:59He was 34 years old but of course he looked a lot older.
0:54:59 > 0:55:03He gained a lot of weight. She says that...
0:55:03 > 0:55:05the doctor was up there twice
0:55:05 > 0:55:09and then, on Sunday night, they were watching the Dorsey Brothers
0:55:09 > 0:55:12television show and during the juggling act,
0:55:12 > 0:55:16he started laughing and then choking, and then died.
0:55:17 > 0:55:23NICA: "Oh, yes. That story became juicy grist for the pulp mills.
0:55:23 > 0:55:26"One screamed, "The Bird And The Baroness' Boudoir."
0:55:26 > 0:55:29"Another newspaper said, "Bop King Dies In Heiress' Flat,"
0:55:29 > 0:55:33"or, "Death Of Bop King Parker."
0:55:33 > 0:55:37"One particular paper said, "Blinded and bedazzled by
0:55:37 > 0:55:42"this luscious, slinky, black-haired, jet-eyed Circe of high society,
0:55:42 > 0:55:45"the yardbird was a fallen sparrow."
0:55:45 > 0:55:49"I mean, how absolutely ridiculous!"
0:55:49 > 0:55:53The most famous columnist in New York at the time
0:55:53 > 0:55:54was Walter Winchell.
0:55:54 > 0:55:59Walter Winchell actually pursued her.
0:55:59 > 0:56:04He persecuted her in his column, as a dealer of drugs...
0:56:04 > 0:56:07Oh, he made her out to be this horror.
0:56:07 > 0:56:09He targeted her, and Walter Winchell was like...
0:56:09 > 0:56:12I don't know if you know anything about Walter Winchell?
0:56:12 > 0:56:15- Oh, you don't know anything about Walter Winchell?- No, no.
0:56:15 > 0:56:19Oh, you should find out. He was a guy literally made or broke people.
0:56:21 > 0:56:25'I did find out, and ploughed through yards of innuendo,
0:56:25 > 0:56:28'speculation, rumours about Nica's love affairs
0:56:28 > 0:56:30'and her supposed habits.
0:56:30 > 0:56:34'But I've always believed that the best way to establish the truth
0:56:34 > 0:56:38'is to ask those who were there, the first-hand witnesses.'
0:56:38 > 0:56:41Did Nica take drugs?
0:56:41 > 0:56:45I don't think I've ever seen Nica...smoke a joint, as they say.
0:56:45 > 0:56:49I've never seen that, so I can't tell you.
0:56:49 > 0:56:52And she never looked to me like someone that was high.
0:56:52 > 0:56:56She would drink a little bit but she...she once told me that she was really...
0:56:56 > 0:57:00She had been, I think, almost a certified alcoholic, I think,
0:57:00 > 0:57:02but she said Thelonious cured her.
0:57:15 > 0:57:19Then she'd get up at...six in the evening,
0:57:19 > 0:57:22and the first thing I'm told that she did
0:57:22 > 0:57:25sometimes was to take a pistol
0:57:25 > 0:57:32around and practice... pistol-shooting on the light bulbs
0:57:32 > 0:57:35in the hotel bedrooms.
0:57:35 > 0:57:38And this of course went down badly with the hotel management.
0:57:38 > 0:57:41And it was my father, from time to time,
0:57:41 > 0:57:46who had to go over there to dissuade with her, to allow her to go on staying there.
0:57:46 > 0:57:50What do you think Nica's family in England's reaction was to
0:57:50 > 0:57:54her lifestyle in New York, and her friends?
0:57:54 > 0:57:57They didn't talk very much about Nica, so I imagine
0:57:57 > 0:58:00that they disapproved, and found it very strange.
0:58:00 > 0:58:04I think they were probably very surprised and slightly shocked.
0:58:07 > 0:58:11Nica's behaviour was too much for her husband.
0:58:11 > 0:58:15The Baron sued for divorce and received custody of the younger children.
0:58:15 > 0:58:19Though her eldest daughter, Janka, was allowed to remain with her mother in New York.
0:58:21 > 0:58:27NICA: "I was living in the Stanhope, but after Bird died, they threw me out.
0:58:27 > 0:58:31"Then I went to the Bolivar, and that's when I got my Steinway.
0:58:31 > 0:58:34"Well, Thelonious and I got it together.
0:58:34 > 0:58:40"That's where he wrote Brilliant Corners, Bolivar Blues, and Pannonica."
0:58:45 > 0:58:50These shelves, unfortunately, tend to break the spines of the records,
0:58:50 > 0:58:51so you can't easily read them.
0:58:51 > 0:58:55These are all Monk records I'm going through, every single one.
0:59:01 > 0:59:03And that's the one with Pannonica on it, is it?
0:59:03 > 0:59:05Mm-hm.
0:59:05 > 0:59:09This is really one of the great dedication pieces.
0:59:09 > 0:59:11This is a very major composition,
0:59:11 > 0:59:16specifically created to celebrate the individual,
0:59:16 > 0:59:22as opposed to, "Hey, we just did a blues ad-libbed in the studio.
0:59:22 > 0:59:24"Let's name it for our friend."
0:59:27 > 0:59:30It's really one of the great, great jazz dedication pieces.
0:59:30 > 0:59:32As substantial as anything.
0:59:32 > 0:59:37NICA: "It was my brother Victor who decided I needed a house,
0:59:37 > 0:59:43"and he found me this one, that had belonged to Josef von Sternberg, Dietrich's director.
0:59:49 > 0:59:54"Thelonious used to call it The Cathouse.
0:59:54 > 0:59:57"I was used to being surrounded by animals."
1:00:04 > 1:00:08She'd know the name of each cat.
1:00:10 > 1:00:16I remember one of her favourites was Cootie, that she named after Cootie Williams.
1:00:16 > 1:00:21So she had all of these cats named after different musicians.
1:00:21 > 1:00:26The term "cats" in jazz comes from the cathouses of New Orleans,
1:00:26 > 1:00:28where the musicians played in the early days.
1:00:28 > 1:00:30That's where they found employment.
1:00:30 > 1:00:34So I think that's how they started calling each other cats.
1:00:34 > 1:00:36The only place they couldn't go, and she told me this,
1:00:36 > 1:00:39was the Bentley.
1:00:39 > 1:00:46It had a fence build around it, in the garage, so they couldn't get into the Bentley.
1:00:49 > 1:00:52What do you think Monk made of all the cats?
1:00:52 > 1:00:56He hated cats. He hated the cats. He said so.
1:00:56 > 1:00:59He just loved her, and liked hanging around her,
1:00:59 > 1:01:01but he wasn't into the cats at all.
1:01:08 > 1:01:13After six years of being a shadowy figure, unable to play in public,
1:01:13 > 1:01:16shuttling between his apartment and Nica's hotel room,
1:01:16 > 1:01:19Monk finally got his cabaret card back,
1:01:19 > 1:01:23and it was Nica who helped him secure a long-standing gig,
1:01:23 > 1:01:29at the Five Spot, a residency that was to go down in jazz history.
1:01:31 > 1:01:35In fact, when I did start to play with Monk at the Five Spot,
1:01:35 > 1:01:36Monk had her to call me up.
1:01:36 > 1:01:39She was the one that made the deal.
1:01:39 > 1:01:43It was great to play at the Five Spot
1:01:43 > 1:01:48with Monk. We were there sometimes 18 weeks at a time.
1:01:48 > 1:01:51I remember her coming in with Monk.
1:01:51 > 1:01:54She was always with an entourage, a few people.
1:01:54 > 1:01:58Come in with her fur coat on and smiling as usual, you know? I'll
1:01:58 > 1:02:00never forget that smile of hers.
1:02:03 > 1:02:08She had taken Thelonious to the Five Spot so many times
1:02:08 > 1:02:12that she could time the lights perfectly, you know?
1:02:12 > 1:02:18So he'd jump in the car and he was living at West 63rd Street,
1:02:18 > 1:02:20near Amsterdam,
1:02:20 > 1:02:23and she'd have to get downtown to the village,
1:02:23 > 1:02:26and she'd just get down there without having to stop.
1:02:26 > 1:02:28Just figured it all out.
1:02:41 > 1:02:47On October 15th, 1958, Nica drove Monk and Charlie Rouse
1:02:47 > 1:02:50to a concert in Wilmington, Delaware.
1:02:52 > 1:02:57A white woman driving two black men was enough to alert the cops.
1:03:00 > 1:03:03It's all here in the cutting.
1:03:03 > 1:03:04They never got there.
1:03:08 > 1:03:10NICA: "Baroness Sentenced.
1:03:10 > 1:03:14"Wilmington, Delaware, April 21st, 1958.
1:03:14 > 1:03:17"Baroness Kathleen Rothschild de Koenigswarter
1:03:17 > 1:03:20"was sentenced to three years in prison today
1:03:20 > 1:03:24"for having ten dollars' worth of marijuana in her car when
1:03:24 > 1:03:29"she was arrested with Thelonious Monk, negro pianist, and another musician."
1:03:29 > 1:03:37The night before, he was going through one of his mental episodes.
1:03:37 > 1:03:41And that, of course, made me nervous, but he had a job...
1:03:41 > 1:03:45We weren't in a position just to cancel a job.
1:03:45 > 1:03:49And then what happened was, he started acting strange.
1:03:52 > 1:03:56So he goes in this hotel, asks for a drink of water.
1:03:56 > 1:04:00Looks very menacing, as far as the hotel staff are concerned.
1:04:00 > 1:04:03The manager of the hotel called the Highway Patrol,
1:04:03 > 1:04:05and he went back into the car.
1:04:06 > 1:04:09They basically started beating Thelonious.
1:04:09 > 1:04:10And the Baroness jumps out.
1:04:10 > 1:04:13She's trying to defend him, saying, "Protect his hands.
1:04:13 > 1:04:17"Don't beat his hands," cos his hands are on the steering wheel,
1:04:17 > 1:04:18and they're beating them.
1:04:18 > 1:04:24They open up the trunk of the car and saw marijuana, a little can.
1:04:24 > 1:04:26It now became a narcotics arrest.
1:04:26 > 1:04:30And she took the rap, you know? She took the rap for him.
1:04:30 > 1:04:32Why do you think she took the rap?
1:04:32 > 1:04:35- Why did she do it?- Yeah.
1:04:35 > 1:04:38I think she did it because
1:04:38 > 1:04:46she felt that she would be able to deal with the legal problems
1:04:46 > 1:04:49much better than he.
1:04:49 > 1:04:52He was black, she was not.
1:04:52 > 1:04:56She was a woman.
1:04:56 > 1:05:00White woman or not, Nica's sentence was three years,
1:05:00 > 1:05:02followed by immediate deportation.
1:05:02 > 1:05:05She refused to say who the dope actually belonged to.
1:05:05 > 1:05:09She went to prison and Monk still lost his card.
1:05:09 > 1:05:14I tried to find out what happened next but the trail went cold.
1:05:14 > 1:05:16No one could tell me any details.
1:05:16 > 1:05:17I hit a dead end.
1:05:23 > 1:05:25And then one of those lucky breaks.
1:05:25 > 1:05:29At Rutgers University in New Jersey, one of the few centres of jazz
1:05:29 > 1:05:34studies, I was looking at Mary Lou Williams' archive.
1:05:34 > 1:05:38The great pianist was Nica's closest friend and pen-pal
1:05:38 > 1:05:41and there were lots of Nica's things.
1:05:47 > 1:05:50There were paintings, fabulous paintings.
1:05:55 > 1:05:57It's absolutely amazing, isn't it?
1:06:04 > 1:06:10And there were letters that quashed my fears that Nica had abandoned her children.
1:06:10 > 1:06:11She hadn't at all.
1:06:11 > 1:06:13There were references to their visits
1:06:13 > 1:06:15and to Christmases and to holidays.
1:06:15 > 1:06:19Bianca and her son Stephen even lived at the Cathouse.
1:06:19 > 1:06:23And all her children hung out with her and the musicians.
1:06:29 > 1:06:31And then I found it, a letter.
1:06:31 > 1:06:37Nica had apparently been let out of prison subject to appeal.
1:06:37 > 1:06:41And this letter was written by Nica the night before
1:06:41 > 1:06:46her case went to the High Court - possibly her last night of freedom,
1:06:46 > 1:06:48the last time she'd see Monk.
1:06:48 > 1:06:53NICA: "Today is the day upon which my entire future may well depend.
1:06:53 > 1:06:57"At this very moment, it may well be being decided.
1:06:57 > 1:06:59"Release, miraculous escape,
1:06:59 > 1:07:03"the chance to start afresh with a clean slate.
1:07:03 > 1:07:06"Or the onset of inevitable catastrophe,
1:07:06 > 1:07:08"the beginning of the end.
1:07:10 > 1:07:16"I don't mention it to Thelonious or Nellie or anyone else.
1:07:16 > 1:07:18"And now I sit outside St Martins
1:07:18 > 1:07:23"and I wonder which of them has any idea of what I'm going through today.
1:07:25 > 1:07:28"And as for Thelonious, well,
1:07:28 > 1:07:33"his protection is at the root of the whole business
1:07:33 > 1:07:36"and I've never discussed it with him.
1:07:36 > 1:07:39"And I don't think he's really aware of that.
1:07:39 > 1:07:42"He and Nellie have enough problems as it is.
1:07:44 > 1:07:50"I've been sitting here for almost two hours and it's very cold.
1:07:52 > 1:07:55"So now I'm going in to light a candle to St Martin."
1:08:01 > 1:08:05Nica's prayers were answered and she got off on a technicality.
1:08:07 > 1:08:12NICA: "Everybody, well, I mean the family, finally got the message after I'd
1:08:12 > 1:08:14"been in and out of prison and all that.
1:08:14 > 1:08:17"They all got to realise what was going on,
1:08:17 > 1:08:21"that Thelonious was something rather important in my life.
1:08:21 > 1:08:25"And of course they're all suddenly dying to meet him.
1:08:25 > 1:08:27"My sister Miriam came up to New York.
1:08:27 > 1:08:30"That's another story."
1:08:30 > 1:08:34It took another 18 months for Monk to get his cabaret card back.
1:08:34 > 1:08:37He hit the road and the recording studios with a vengeance
1:08:37 > 1:08:43and was finally recognised as the genius that Nica had spotted 11 years earlier.
1:08:46 > 1:08:48Hello again. The star guest of our Jazz
1:08:48 > 1:08:52625 show tonight has been referred to as the high priest of bebop, as
1:08:52 > 1:08:57a jazz maverick, as the mysterious Monk and, more recently,
1:08:57 > 1:09:01in a London paper, as the piano Picasso.
1:09:01 > 1:09:02Whatever that means.
1:09:02 > 1:09:06What he is, in fact, is one of those rare beings, a true jazz
1:09:06 > 1:09:11original, a vastly respected musician and composer, whose
1:09:11 > 1:09:15influence on jazz in the last 25 years has been incalculable,
1:09:15 > 1:09:18but who has remained all the time a striking individualist.
1:09:18 > 1:09:19The name is Thelonious Monk.
1:09:21 > 1:09:22APPLAUSE
1:10:03 > 1:10:07He's suddenly a star. All the critics who hated him, love him.
1:10:07 > 1:10:11But this is jazz, which means that you can be loved,
1:10:11 > 1:10:15you can get gigs all the time, but you still won't make any money.
1:10:15 > 1:10:19I mean, this is a man who signed with Columbia records,
1:10:19 > 1:10:22which is a big record label, and by the time he left the label,
1:10:22 > 1:10:24he owed them over 100,000.
1:10:24 > 1:10:27Despite selling many, many records.
1:10:27 > 1:10:29It was an unfortunate life.
1:10:36 > 1:10:42Thelonious Monk was listed in the phone book. "Monk, Thelonious."
1:10:42 > 1:10:45Now, someone on his level today would be unlisted.
1:10:45 > 1:10:50Because they were poor, they wanted the phone to ring, they wanted jobs.
1:10:54 > 1:10:59In 1968, Columbia records cancelled Monk's recording contract.
1:10:59 > 1:11:04Without this money, it was extremely hard to keep a band together.
1:11:04 > 1:11:08Nica's own finances were increasingly precarious.
1:11:08 > 1:11:12The cat food and veterinarian bills alone were astronomical.
1:11:12 > 1:11:16Monk had to go out on the road to earn money, even though he
1:11:16 > 1:11:21was suffering from frequent nervous breakdowns and even hospitalisation.
1:11:26 > 1:11:29One particular incident happened in San Francisco,
1:11:29 > 1:11:32when Monk was admitted to the mental ward
1:11:32 > 1:11:34by the trumpeter Eddie Henderson,
1:11:34 > 1:11:39who was at that time a newly- qualified psychiatric doctor.
1:11:41 > 1:11:46Nellie brought him in late at night and I was awake and I came
1:11:46 > 1:11:49downstairs to be the doctor, to do the intake interview.
1:11:49 > 1:11:52I said, "That's Monk!" to myself.
1:11:52 > 1:11:54Nobody else really knew who he was.
1:12:01 > 1:12:04Nica said over her dead body
1:12:04 > 1:12:07would Monk receive shock treatment.
1:12:09 > 1:12:14That was something she was very adamant. But she wasn't out there,
1:12:14 > 1:12:16she didn't go to the West Coast.
1:12:23 > 1:12:30So, electric shock therapy, most people have a grand seizure, Monk just gritted his teeth.
1:12:30 > 1:12:35They put electrodes to his head and, in effect, turn on electricity.
1:12:35 > 1:12:40And somehow, it more or less does something to the brain cells.
1:12:42 > 1:12:45And it works. They're not depressed any more.
1:12:45 > 1:12:48However, they're not really the same anymore.
1:12:55 > 1:12:58At the end, they gave Mr Monk a diagnosis -
1:12:58 > 1:13:01schizophrenia, unclassified type.
1:13:12 > 1:13:17According to Paul Jeffreys - one of Monk's sidemen - Nellie had hoped to
1:13:17 > 1:13:19spend time on the West Coast and to
1:13:19 > 1:13:25find Monk a permanent engagement in either San Francisco or Los Angeles.
1:13:25 > 1:13:29To save money, Nellie had sub-let the family apartment
1:13:29 > 1:13:34but Monk's breakdown meant they had to come back to New York.
1:13:34 > 1:13:39When Monk came back to New York, he had no apartment and no furniture.
1:13:39 > 1:13:41He had nowhere to stay.
1:13:41 > 1:13:44So Nica got him an apartment.
1:13:44 > 1:13:47So what had happened to his apartment and his furniture?
1:13:47 > 1:13:50Nobody ever knew.
1:13:50 > 1:13:54Cos Monk used to ask me, "Where's my furniture?"
1:13:54 > 1:13:58I remember he even went so far as that Charlie Rouse lived in
1:13:58 > 1:14:01the same apartment building that Monk used to live in.
1:14:01 > 1:14:03And he went by Charlie Rouse's house.
1:14:03 > 1:14:07Charlie wasn't in, Charlie's old lady was there.
1:14:07 > 1:14:12And Monk walked through the whole apartment looking for his furniture.
1:14:13 > 1:14:15JAZZ PIANO MUSIC
1:14:28 > 1:14:30He's also suffering from prostate problems,
1:14:30 > 1:14:34so physically it's difficult for him to sit for long periods of time
1:14:34 > 1:14:38and increasingly he began to cut down the number of gigs.
1:14:38 > 1:14:41He lost a lot of his sidemen because they needed steady work
1:14:41 > 1:14:43and so he couldn't provide that for them.
1:14:43 > 1:14:48In '72, that's when he had a really bad episode, and that's
1:14:48 > 1:14:52when Nellie and Nica decided that it would be better for him
1:14:52 > 1:14:56to move in to the Baroness's house.
1:14:56 > 1:15:01Monk spent the last 10 years of his life in the Cathouse, and his final
1:15:01 > 1:15:07public engagements were at Carnegie Hall and at Bradley's in 1976.
1:15:07 > 1:15:10People would ask him, "How come you stopped playing?"
1:15:10 > 1:15:14He says, "Well, I'm just tired. I just got tired of playing."
1:15:15 > 1:15:17NICA: "Monk only stopped playing
1:15:17 > 1:15:21"when it became a physical impossibility for him to go on.
1:15:21 > 1:15:26"Otherwise, nothing on earth could have stopped him playing.
1:15:26 > 1:15:30"You know, he had a biochemical imbalance
1:15:30 > 1:15:34"and he was desperately ill during those last years.
1:15:35 > 1:15:39"He wanted to get well more than anything in the world.
1:15:39 > 1:15:43"And he co-operated with his doctors 100%.
1:15:43 > 1:15:47"And they tried everything under the sun,
1:15:47 > 1:15:49"but nothing seemed to help.
1:15:50 > 1:15:54"I only regret one thing in my life,
1:15:54 > 1:15:57"and that's not being able to save Thelonious."
1:16:06 > 1:16:09People would go up there like a pilgrimage every day.
1:16:11 > 1:16:13And he'd be in the bed.
1:16:13 > 1:16:16He'd have half the world stretched out in the bed with him.
1:16:16 > 1:16:21Books, magazines, records, all kinds of stuff.
1:16:21 > 1:16:25It was always very strange. And I'd say, "What's happening, Monk?"
1:16:25 > 1:16:27He'd say "Everything, all the time.
1:16:27 > 1:16:33"Every...what, googolplex of a second," he'd say.
1:16:33 > 1:16:35I'd say, "Oh, really?"
1:16:35 > 1:16:39'I like to think of Nica at this time in her house across the water
1:16:39 > 1:16:44'living with Monk and an assortment of children, grandchildren and cats.
1:16:44 > 1:16:48'Still entertaining other musicians and still, as her interviews and her
1:16:48 > 1:16:53'letters show, fully committed to helping Thelonious.'
1:17:03 > 1:17:05NICA: "I haven't been away anywhere for 12 years,
1:17:05 > 1:17:07"but then I had to go to England.
1:17:09 > 1:17:12"I'm not a crier, I never cried.
1:17:12 > 1:17:16"I can count the times on one hand when I've cried.
1:17:16 > 1:17:20"I didn't cry when Thelonious died and I haven't cried since.
1:17:22 > 1:17:26"But on the day that I left here, I started to cry.
1:17:26 > 1:17:31"And when I went to say goodbye to Thelonious, he was really upset.
1:17:31 > 1:17:36"I couldn't stop, you know? I just couldn't stop.
1:17:36 > 1:17:39"And I cried the whole way to England, too.
1:17:39 > 1:17:44"And I remember Thelonious saying there before I left,
1:17:44 > 1:17:48"It's all right, I will be here when you come back.
1:17:48 > 1:17:51"I'm not going anywhere. I will be here."
1:17:52 > 1:17:55"But I just couldn't stop.
1:17:55 > 1:18:01"And that was in 1982 and, of course, he died in 1982.
1:18:01 > 1:18:05"And it was almost like I knew he was going to,
1:18:05 > 1:18:10"and, like I had to say my farewell to him then."
1:18:44 > 1:18:47What would have happened to Monk if she wasn't there?
1:18:49 > 1:18:52- MONK: - 'I would like to play a little tune
1:18:52 > 1:18:55'I just composed named after this beautiful lady here.'
1:18:58 > 1:19:01Your aunt fell in love with my dad.
1:19:01 > 1:19:04I have no doubt about that.
1:19:04 > 1:19:07I love Nica so I'll do anything for Nica.
1:19:10 > 1:19:11She has that cigarette holder
1:19:11 > 1:19:14and that long hair and that smile and that whole thing.
1:19:14 > 1:19:16I can just see her now.
1:19:19 > 1:19:21She was cool and she was hip.
1:19:21 > 1:19:25Those were the key words back then, cool to be hip and hip to be cool.
1:19:25 > 1:19:30And your aunt was a pretty damn flamboyant woman.
1:19:30 > 1:19:34She was our pride and she was our light.
1:19:39 > 1:19:43The last time I saw great-aunt Nica was in the club downtown.
1:19:43 > 1:19:47She sat, of course, at her usual table nearest the stage
1:19:47 > 1:19:51and her fur coat was slung over the back of a chair.
1:19:54 > 1:20:00She never did succeed in making me a jazz expert and nor did her example
1:20:00 > 1:20:02tempt me to seek a life elsewhere.
1:20:04 > 1:20:06Perhaps I lack courage.
1:20:06 > 1:20:11Perhaps I just never heard the right record at the right time.
1:20:11 > 1:20:14'But what Nica and her friends have shown me is that
1:20:14 > 1:20:16'those of us lucky enough to enjoy
1:20:16 > 1:20:20'freedom and opportunity should make the most of every minute.'
1:20:24 > 1:20:28And if she were with me now, I think I know what Nica would do.
1:20:28 > 1:20:33First, she'd pour us both a shot of whisky from her teapot
1:20:33 > 1:20:37and then she'd raise her finger to her mouth and she'd whisper,
1:20:37 > 1:20:42"Shh, just listen to the music, Hannah.
1:20:42 > 1:20:44"Just listen."
1:20:57 > 1:21:02NICA: "I would like my ashes to be scattered on the Hudson River
1:21:02 > 1:21:04"in the evening, round midnight.
1:21:06 > 1:21:12"Yes, I said "round midnight." I think you all know why."
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