David Kastin, Nica’s Dream: The Life and Legend of the Jazz Baroness (Norton).
US patrons of the arts generally fund institutions. In the tradition of European wealth, Pannonica de Koenigswarter helped individuals. She supported and befriended, among others, Charlie Parker, Art Blakey and Thelonious Monk. She shocked her peers and the public, lost her husband and did inestimable good for jazz. Despite her childrens’ refusal to cooperate, Kastin tells Nica’s story well—her escape from the stuffy Rothschild milieu, her war heroism, her discovery of jazz, her patronage of Monk and the sanctuary she provided him in his final troubled years. He captures the color and drama of her personality. For earlier Rifftides posts about Nica, go here.