JazzWax

Doc: Earl "Fatha" Hines

Earl Hines (above) revolutionized the piano in the 1930s and, with Art Tatum, remains jazz's mightiest player. His fearsome, trumpet-like octave attack incorporated all aspects of the jazz orchestra. Instead of cranking out machine-like syncopation on the keyboard, Hines's dexterous swing style gave the piano a personality free from the rhythm section and set the stage for the big band era. Here's a color documentary on the man they called "Fatha." It was filmed at the Blues Alley jazz club in Washington, D.C., for the U.K.'s ITV channel in 1975...

Bud, Carlos and Jimmy

In The Wall Street Journal this past week, I interviewed former baseball commissioner Bud Selig for my "House Call" column in the Mansion section (go here). Selig talked about the person in his family who turned him on to baseball as a child and took him to every Milwaukee game, all while scoring games and chastising managers and umpires for bad calls from the upper deck. That person was his mother. [Photo above of Bud Selig courtesy of Wikipedia]

Here are highlights of the Dodgers-Yankees World Series in 1955...

Carlos Lyra, the magnificent bossa nova legend, sent me a link last night to his latest video, E era Copacabana (And It Was Copacabana), just in time to include in this weekend's post so you can enjoy. Carlos's latest album is Além da Bossa here....

Jimmy Heath. If you enjoyed my post on Voice of the Saxophone, a rare promotional album featuring tenor saxophonist Jimmy Heath with the Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw, you may want to re-read the post. I heard from Juan Martinez last week, the orchestra's musical director, who sent along the album's liner notes and updated the information. Go here. [Photo of Jimmy Heath above courtesy of Jimmy Heath]

Jimmy Heath2. Last week, I also heard from John Kettlewell, who sent along the following email and links...

Hi, Marc. Here are three more examples of Jimmy Heath playing with a European orchestra. This time it’s Germany's West Deutsche Rundfunk Big Band [photo of Jimmy Heath above courtesy of Jimmy Heath]:

Here's Brother Sonny...

Here's Changes...

And here's Bruh Slim...

Oscar Peterson. Following my post last week on four new Oscar Peterson videos, here's another from Richard Busiakiewicz...

Movie podcast. If you love film as much as I do, you'll dig director Raymond De Felitta's new podcast, Movies 'Til Dawn. His first two episodes are in-depth conversations with actor Andy Garcia and director John G. Avildsen (Rocky, Karate Kid, etc.). Go here. And for Raymond's blog post in support of the podcast, go here. [Photo above of Andy Garcia courtesy of IMDB]

What the heck. Here's the Ritchie Family vocalists performing the group's biggest hits, Brazil (1975) and The Best Disco in Town (1976), plus Life Is Music (1977) on public television in Spain in the late 1970s...

Oddball album cover of the week.

Nothing like a stroll on Rio's #MeToo Beach in the late 1950s.

The Beatles: Abbey Road

Abbey Road in 1969 was the last Beatles album on which the Fab Four recorded together. By then, deep creative and personal differences had set in, and the album would be more of a gear-straining collection of solo efforts than four shoulders against the wheel. At work on their 11th studio album at Abbey Road Studios between February and August 1969, the Beatles had done it all and seen it all. Collaborative exhaustion had set in. In fact, the band had become so successful that they were detached from the culture they helped start back in 1964.

Giving up touring in 1966 to become studio musicians was a necessity, a self-imposed exile. Their outsized fame dwarfed Hollywood standards and had sparked a dangerous mania. For better or worse, the vacuum they left in the rock-concert marketplace was quickly filled by artists such as the Rolling Stones, Cream, the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, the Byrds, the Kinks and Pink Floyd. Abbey Road would be the Beatles' final moan before members went their separate ways. Let It Be arrived in 1970, but much of the material predated the recording of Abbey Road. The title said it all.

Now, 50 years after Abbey Road's recording and release, Apple Corps Ltd./Capitol/UMe has issued a super-deluxe three-album edition featuring the original 17 tracks newly mixed by producer Giles Martin and mix engineer Sam Okell in stereo, high resolution stereo, 5.1 surround, and Dolby Atmos. There also are 23 session recordings and demos, most of which are previously unreleased. Other album configurations include a three-LP box, a deluxe two-CD set, and a standard one-CD and one-LP edition. Do yourself a favor and buy the three-CD super-deluxe edition. The extras are well worth the extra cost.

In retrospect, the Abbey Road album is something of a CAT scan of the Beatles' collective soul, with all of its weariness, frustration and boredom. Revisiting the music, you sense they were fairly fed up with each other's quirks, sour on George Martin's heavily orchestrated vision, weary of studio cabin fever, and angry about not being in the forefront of social change. They were apolitical at a time when taking a stand was part of the music's ethos.

I was never a fan of Abbey Road. When the album came out, my family had just moved to the suburbs of New York. The Beatles' breakup became news just as our moving boxes were torn open. Most 13-year-olds I befriended skipped the album and rarely put it on once they owned it. Same here. Even at 13, I felt the album was a low-energy, unfocused collection of singles and transitional music-hall montages housed on an album that lacked kick or cohesiveness. It was foreign and clearly about personal issues that kids my age knew little about. The cover should have been stamped, "It's complicated."

Listening again today, the original tracks still fail to lift me. But the bonus material is another matter entirely. These 23 tracks make up a fascinating drone-like fly-over of a sprawling construction site. What's fascinating is that the album's songs actually sound better in their early roughed-up form than the glossy finished product. Which made me realize what I didn't like about Abbey Road to begin with. It was too polished, too inside and earnest. The coarseness of the bonus tracks along with the experimental intros (Maxwell's Hammer, Because), the pep (Come and Get It) and drill-downs (the string parts on take 39 of Something and take 17 of Golden Slumbers-Carry That Weight) exhibit none of the dreary melancholy found on the album's processed master tracks. Instead, the early material still bears the joy of creation and the magic of discovery. [Photo of Ringo and George playing George's moog synthesizer]

In May 1970, months after Abbey Road's release, the Beatles released Let It Be. The album felt like something flung from the window of a getaway car. The Beatles had broken up a month earlier, and the album was a farewell letter without an apology. From Two of Us to Get Back, the songs on Let It Be were a tour de force of simplicity. By then, my life in the country had become much simpler. I finally had my own room, and there were lawns, paths through thick woods, wild animals, streams and pitch black nights and dead quiet. Riding around on my green Sting-ray bike, Let It Be made complete sense. A new chapter had begun, and Let It Be was a more suitable soundtrack. [Photo of John at an Abbey Road session]

Long and winding road. Here's a clip taken by Mary McCartney on her phone of her dad crossing Abbey Road in London last year...

JazzWax tracks: You'll find the Abbey Road Anniversary Super Deluxe edition here.

JazzWax clips: Here's Giles Martin, George Martin's son, on the Abbey Road project...

Here's the studio demo of Something...

Here's the strings instrumental part to Something scored by George Martin...

And here's the newly mixed Something from the 50th anniversary album...

New Videos: Oscar Peterson

Last week, Mattias Nilsson in Sweden sent along four links to new videos of pianist Oscar Peterson in action on TV in Sweden, Canada and the U.S. Peterson's Dick Cavett Show appearance has been featured at JazzWax, but this is a fresh print with better sound. Here's OP putting on four spectacular shows...

Here's Oscar Peterson in Sweden in the mid-1960s with bassist Ray Brown and drummer Ed Thigpen, interviewed by bassist Simon Brehm. Also featured are Woody Herman; tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin with pianist Kenny Drew, bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen and drummer Art Taylor; and alto saxophonist Charlie Mariano with pianist (and then wife) Toshiko Akiyoshi, bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen and drummer Alex Riel... 

Here's Peterson in Canada in November 1976 with guest stars Louis Bellson, Ray Brown, Clark Terry, Zoot Sims, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Roy Eldridge, Ray Charles, Norman Granz and others...

Here's Peterson on The Dick Cavett Show in 1979...

And here's Peterson on The Danny Kaye Show in 1965 with Brown and Thigpen...

For more on Mattias Nilsson, go here.

Jimmy Heath: Holland, 2012

A mysterious CD arrived a couple of weeks ago from a reader. The album's title is The Voice of the Saxophone, featuring the Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw of the Netherlands, conducted by Henk Meutgeert and featuring solos by tenor saxophonist Jimmy Heath. That's all the information that came with the CD, and the sender said that's about all he knows about it. So I had to roll up my sleeves and look around, since the album isn't detailed in most jazz discographies.

The live album was recorded on March 29, 2012 at Bimhuis in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It was recorded for Dutch Broadcasting on NTR:Co Livez and broadcast later in the spring of that year.

The 18-member big band recorded eight songs, all of them Jimmy Heath originals except for Houston St. Beat, a John Marshall song arranged by Henk Meutgeert. All the others were arranged by Jimmy: Sleeves, Ellington's Strayhorn, Project "S," The Time and the Place, The Voice of the Saxophone, Gemini and Gingerbread Boy. According to Juan Martinez, the artistic director, "Later the recording was mastered for a promotional CD in the Dutch magazine Jazzism in collaboration with NTR. The orchestra received 100 copies, which we gave away as promotional gifts. As we speak we are out of copies so it became a collectors item.

The orchestra featured Jelle Schouten, Wim Both, Rini Swinkels, Ruud Breuls and Jan van Duikeren (trumpets), Jan Oosting, Bert Pfeiffer, Bert Boeren and Martin van den Berg (trombones); Joris Roelofs Jorg Kaaij Simon Rigter Sjoerd Dijkhuizen Juan Martinez (saxes); Rob van Bavel (piano); Martijn van Iterson (guitar); Frans van Geest (bass); Marcel Serierse (drums) and Henk Meutgeert (conductor) [Photo above of the Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw in 2012]

Juan continues: "There have been some changes in the Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw since then. Henk left the band in 2014 and his successor as chief conductor is Dennis Mackrel, with Rob Horsting serving as a chief arranger). The talented musicians who remain have a great love for jazz and a deep commitment to the music. At our website here, you can find the latest information about the band."

The music on this album is exceptional. As a composer, Jimmy has always been melodic, complex and graceful. As an orchestral soloist, Jimmy is strong, sensitive and engaging. And as a big-band arranger, he remains one of the unheralded giants. His originality and section work are tender and powerful. As with Thad Jones and Francy Boland, Jimmy has a modernist intricacy without losing his sense of swing or knack for knowing what tickles the listener's ear and moves feet. The album is uplifting on all fronts. Hopefully, a Dutch label or Heath himself will find a way to get this gem wide distribution. [Photo above of the Councertgebouw's exterior]

As for the Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw, it remains one of the finest big bands worldwide. The Concertgebouw refers to the Royal Concertgebouw, a concert hall in Amsterdam built in the late 1880s with 1,974 seats in the main hall, including sizable tiered seating behind the musicians on stage. The jazz orchestra was founded in 1999 and features Holland's best of the best (more here). [Photo above of the Concertgebouw's interior, with stage seating]

To read my two-part 2009 interview with Jimmy Heath, go here.

JazzWax tracks: The Voice of the Saxophone, featuring the Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw and Jimmy Heath is nearly impossible to find. I couldn't locate it anywhere online. If you find a source, please share with me and I'll alert readers.

JazzWax tracks: Several days before this live album was recorded, the Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw recorded with Jimmy Heath live at BIMhuis Amsterdam.

The personnel was Jelle Schouten, Ruud Breuls, Wim Both, Rini Swinkels and Jan van Duikeren (tp); Jan Oosting, Bert Boeren and Bert Pfeifer (tb); Martin van den Berg (bass tb); Jorg Kaaij and Joris Roelofs (as); Sjoerd Dijkhuizen (ts); Simon Rigter (ts); Juan Martinez (bs); Rob van Bavel (p); Martijn van Iterson (g); Frans van Geest (b); Marcel Serierse (d), Henk Meutgeert (conductor) and Jimmy Heath (solo ts,ss).

Here's Jimmy Heath's Ellington's Strayhorn at BIMhuis Amsterdam...

Here's Sleeves...

And here's The Voice of the Saxophone...

The Voice of the Saxophone

A special thanks to Malcolm Walker and Juan Martinez.

Art Pepper: Artists House

Art Pepper never had enough time. From the moment he put the alto saxophone in his mouth in the 1940s, Pepper was in a hyperactive hurry to record, to play gigs, to get press, to stand out. He seemed to be hounded by the clock and a dread that he was on borrowed time. The result could leave him uncertain and uneasy. By the late 1970s, Pepper faced a similar dread. Jazz was drying up, or at least the audiences and money for the music were. The walls were closing in. [Photo above of Art and Laurie Pepper, courtesy of Laurie Pepper]

Like Washington Irving's Ichabod Crane trying to outrun the headless horseman in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Pepper could sense doom bearing down on him. This anxiety sent him scrambling, emotionally. In the late 1970s, Pepper and his wife, Laurie, caught wind that his recording contract with Contemporary Records might be sold to A&M's Horizon jazz line. In a phone call, Lester assured the Peppers that this wasn't true.

Pepper's anxiety level had shot up initially, but he settled down once he and Laurie were introduced to John Snyder (above), Horizon's creative director. Snyder turned out to be an island of serenity and support. In addition to running Horizon, Snyder had started his own label called Artists House in 1977. As the label's name indicates, creative control was placed in the hands of recording artists.

Snyder's first move was to send Pepper out on tour in 1977 to build a marketplace for his future recordings. The tour started in Toronto, followed by a week in July at New York's Village Vanguard. Snyder asked Contemporary's Lester Koenig if he could record Pepper at the club. According to Laurie, Koenig liked the idea but decided to record Pepper himself. Naturally, Snyder was disappointed. Nevertheless, the results were albums for Contemporary documenting Pepper's spectacular gigs on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights at the club.

In November 1977, Koenig died suddenly, and Pepper soon decided to sign with Fantasy. Laurie notes that she and Pepper felt badly and insisted that Pepper's Fantasy contract include a clause allowing him to record an album for Snyder's Artists House. Pepper would record more than a single LP for the label. [Photo above of Lester Koenig by (c) Ray Avery/CTSImages.com]

His complete output for Snyder now appears on a five-disc box released yesterday—Art Pepper: Promise Kept, The Complete Artists House Recordings (Omnivore). The four albums Pepper recorded for the label are here along with alternate takes and a fifth disc with unissued takes. Laurie Pepper wrote the box's liner notes.

Since the albums were recorded in New York and Los Angeles in 1979, Pepper used two different rhythm sections. In New York, he was joined by pianist Hank Jones, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Al Foster. In L.A., the section was pianist George Cables, bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Billy Higgins. [Photo above, from left, Billy Higgins, Charlie Haden, Art Pepper and George Cables]

As evidenced by the music on the box, Pepper's anxiety in 1979 was reflected in his frantic attack on uptempo songs. Many of them, such as Straight No Chaser, Blues for Blanche and So in Love are a bit scattershot and fractured, an edgy overreach yearning to experiment or show his stuff. Fortunately, these make up a fraction of the box's material. [Photo above of Laurie and Art Pepper, courtesy of Laurie Pepper]

Where Pepper excels is on the ballads, which make up a bulk of the set. These include Body and Soul, Desafinado, You Go to My Head, Lover Man, Duo Blues, Stardust, Yesterdays and perhaps Pepper's most important original ballad, Diane. I'd include Anthropology, In a Mellow Tone and Lover Man in this grouping, since we get to hear Pepper on a thoughtful, gentle clarinet. We also have multiple takes of a marvelous uptempo but laid back Pepper original, My Friend John. [Photo above of Laurie and Art Pepper, courtesy of Laurie Pepper]

On these patient songs, Pepper's personality and poetry emerge. Seemingly free from proving something, Pepper metaphorically puts his legs up, cups his hands behind his head and takes a deep breath. Through the therapeutic act of playing a ballad, Pepper's metabolism settled down and he was able to artfully put the curves back in his improvisation. The results are absolutely beautiful. [Photo above of Laurie Pepper, courtesy of Laurie Pepper]

Art Pepper died in 1982.

Laurie Pepper can be found here.

John Snyder can be found at Loyola University in New Orleans here.

JazzWax tracks: You'll find Art Pepper: Promise Kept, The Complete Artists House Recordings (Omnivore) here.

JazzWax clips: You can hear the box's tracks at YouTube here.

Here's an alternate take of My Friend John...

Here's take 2 of Desafinado...

And here's Diane...

Harold Mabern: 1936-2019

Harold Mabern, a pianist who began his ascent to prominence just as jazz began to slip into obscurity but quickly became a hard-bop and soul-jazz legend, died September 17. He was 83. [Photo above of Harold Mabern courtesy of ekathimerini.com]

Born in Memphis, Tenn., Mabern was self-taught and inspired by Memphis pianist Phineas Newborn Jr. In 1954, Mabern moved to Chicago, where he began recording with saxophonist Frank Strozier. He also was close with Memphis saxophonist George Coleman and trumpeter Booker Little. After moving to New York in 1959, Mabern recorded as a sideman for a range of jazz artists expanding into the boogaloo and other forms of popular music.

His rise into the upper ranks of jazz began in 1962, when he recorded with Art Farmer and Benny Golson's Jazztet (The Jazztet: Here and Now). But the most significant turning point came in 1965, when he recorded with Freddie Hubbard (studio), Wes Montgomery (tour), Sonny Stitt (studio) and then a series of vital recordings with Hank Mobley (Dippin'), Lee Morgan (The Gigolo), Jackie McLean (Consequence) and Blue Mitchell (Bring It Home to Me).

In 1968, Mabern began a long career recording exceptional albums as a leader, starting with A Few Miles From Memphis, with saxophonists George Coleman and Buddy Terry. In the 1960s and '70s, his albums leaned toward an elegant form of soul-jazz, unleashing grooves with a gentle funk. His solo albums in the decades that followed had a rich, explorative quality. On the keyboard, he enjoyed opening songs with the same type of knotted mystery and whimsy favored by Erroll Garner, who often left his bassist and drummer guessing about his chosen song until the last few seconds.

Here are 10 of my favorite tracks by Harold Mabern that will serve as entry points to different phases of his discography:

Here's The Dip from Hank Mobley's Dippin'. (1966)..

Here's Mabern with Lee Morgan playing The Gigolo, from the 1968 album of the same name...

Here's There's a Kind of a Hush from Mabern's first solo album, A Few Miles From Memphis (1968)...

There's a Kind of Hush

Here's Mabern's Greasy Kid Stuff from the 1970 album of the same name, with Lee Morgan on trumpet and Hubert Laws on tenor saxophone...

Here's Mabern on the title track to Pisces Calling (1978)...

Here's Mabern playing electric piano with saxophonist Stanley Turrentine on Two for T from Turrentine's Don't Mess With Mr. T (1973)...

Here's Mabern with Gene Ammons playing Jug Eyes from Ammons's The Black Cat! (1971)...

Here's Mabern playing Maybe September from his album Maya with Love (2000)...

Maybe September

Here's Mabern playing Stolen Moments from his Misty album (2007)...

Stolen Moments

Here's Lazybird from Mabern's Philadelphia Bound album (1999)...

Lazybird

Bonus: Here's Mabern with Wes Montgomery on tour in Belgium in 1965 playing Jingles...

And here's Mabern with Montgomery in 1965 playing John Coltrane's Impressions...

Hugh, Stan and John

In The Wall Street Journal this week, I interviewed Downton Abbey's Hugh Bonneville for my "House Call" column in the Mansion section (go here). Hugh, you may recall, played Lord Grantham in Downton Abbey, a role he reprises in the Downton Abbey film that opened on Friday. And if you aren't hip to the series, you now can binge all six seasons at Amazon Prime. I missed Downton Abbey when it aired originally on PBS, but I fell in love with the series over the past two months prior to my interview. Now, of course, I'm hooked on all British programming. I strongly recommend Endeavor, also on Amazon Prime. Great way to end the day. [Photo above of Hugh Bonneville courtesy of Downton Abbey]

As you probably imagine, Hugh is a lovely guy. His voice has a wonderful cadence, and at times I did have the urge to address him as "M'Lord." Speaking of which, I did ask him whether his own housekeeper has seen Downton Abbey. His answer was quite funny.

Here's Hugh with Jim Carter (who plays Carson) talking about their roles...

Stan Getz. Here's 50 minutes of the Stan Getz Quartet at the London School of Economics in 1966...

Count Basie. Here's two gorgeous hours of Count Basie in 1972...

Father Tom Vaughn. Following my post on pianist Father Tom Vaughn, I received the following from Greg Lee:

Marc, I got to know Father Tom Vaughn while interviewing him for my college magazine. By then in the late ‘70s, he was rector of an Episcopal diocese in the San Fernando Valley in California. He played club gigs occasionally around L.A., most memorably at Donte’s, my regular hangout then and the place where studio musicians from all the Hollywood TV variety shows would jam. Vaughn usually had Leroy Vinnegar on bass, whom he loved to tease. Vaughn was great with ballads, and he’d sometimes insert some Bach fugue stylings into his arrangements. He was also very witty on stage, telling cornball jokes and making self-deprecating comments about his collar. If your readers can find copies of Joyful Jazz from Concord, that was his last recording and one of my favorites. Thanks for bringing this soulful priest to your readers!

And here's one from Frank Farnham on Father O'Connor, who was on the Newport Jazz Festival board from the start...

Marc, in 1959 I was hired as a music librarian at WHDH radio in Boston. One of the employees there was John McLellan. He was a staff announcer who ran a jazz program called Top Shelf. In 1960 while still working full time at WHDH, I began attending Boston University. There, I became an on-air host of a call-in request program for WBUR-FM, which at the time was a student run and staffed station by undergrads and some grad students. Father O’Connor was host of a program on the station called Jazz Trends.

John Coltrane radio. WKCR-FM in New York will present its annual “John Coltrane Birthday Broadcast” on Monday, September 23. On Sunday, a day before the broadcast, Sid Gribetz will be producing a three-hour special from 2 to 5 p.m. (EDT) showcasing Coltrane's Atlantic years. You can listen on your phone or computer from anywhere in the world by going here. 

What the heck. Here's Arlo Guthrie singing Can't Help Falling in Love...

Oddball album cover of the week.

Wonder what drove her to take the leap? Babies crying steadily from take off? The teenager repeatedly kicking the back of her seat? The guy snoring next to her? The couple laughing out loud at the comedy they're watching? The woman constantly getting up to get something out of her bag and slamming the overhead compartment shut? Or the guy who jacked his seat all the way back into her lap?

BBC Doc: Pet Sounds

Today is the last Friday of summer. Autumn officially begins on Monday. Perfect for a superb BBC documentary on the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds. The documentary was written by Mark Lamarr, who appears on camera as the narrator and interviewer, and was directed by Sarah Aspinall. It first aired on the BBC in 2002.

Conceived, composed and recorded as a response to the Beatles' Rubber Soul, Pet Sounds wasn't about pets or the sounds that emanate from them, as the cover would have you believe. The album title refers to the sounds the Beach Boys love or Brian Wilson's favorite sounds, since he produced—a misty moodscape of confessional love songs and innocence backed by a forest of instrumentation topped by falsetto and rich vocal harmony. 

The last time I saw Brian, we were in an air-conditioned trailer at California's Mid-State Fair in 2016 a few hours before he would perform Pet Sounds with Al Jardine and their band. It was August, and I was there to interview Brian and Al about the Beach Boys' hit Good Vibrations for my WSJ "Anatomy of a Song" column. The temperature outside was a blistering 106, but the air in the trailer was in the 70s as we sat around on sofas and talked about one of the group's most important and innovative songs. Good Vibrations was to be included on Pet Sounds, but Brian held it for their next album, Smile, which wound up being held by Capitol at the time. [Photo above courtesy of Brian Wilson]

Later, at the concert in the humid twilight, Brian and the band sang and played Pet Sounds in its entirety, along with Good Vibrations and other hits. As dusk turned to evening, color-drenched neon-framed rides turned and spun in the distance. The music seemed ethereal, like the soundtrack to a California dream. Beach balls were punched over the crowd and kids in bathing suits danced to their parents' music. Listening to the songs in that setting was akin to hearing opera in Milan or bebop in Greenwich Village. Pet Sounds outdoors in the hot summer evening air in central California was at home, and the visual gave new meaning to Wouldn't It Be Nice, God Only Knows, Sloop John B, and Caroline No.

On this pre-fall Friday, our summer of 2019 is fading to just a memory. Happy times together we've been spending / I wish that every kiss was never ending.

Here's the 2002 documentary. It's one of the finest documentaries on the Beach Boys and Pet Sounds, airing originally as part of the BBC's Art That Shook the World series...

Doc: The Jazz Baroness

If Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter hadn't moved to New York in 1951, we'd probably have far fewer recordings by Thelonious Monk. Nica, as she was known, was Monk's best friend and benefactor. A member of the wealthy Rothschild family, Nica's decision to relocate to Manhattan came after separating from her husband. She left her five children behind and took a suite at 995 Fifth Avenue, moves that resulted in her disinheritance. [Photo of Thelonious Monk and Nica emerging from her Bentley in 1964 in front of New York's Five Spot, by Ben Martin]

Soon, she began frequenting jazz clubs, where she had a deep and inquisitive respect for bebop improvisation and was infatuated with modern jazz's nocturnal culture and individualism. Thanks to her patronage of jazz musicians who needed a few bucks or a place to stay (Charlie Parker died in her apartment in 1955), Nica became known informally as the "Jazz Baroness." [Photo above of Thelonious Monk by Herb Snitzer]

But of all the jazz musicians she befriended (there were many), Nica was closest to Thelonious Monk. She admired his gentle manner and brilliant mind, particularly his unique playing style and ingenious compositions. By the late-1950s, Nica and Monk became close friends, and she was his protector, recognizing that he suffered from a form of mental illness that also ran in her family. From the perspective of black jazz musicians, they were honored that someone white and aristocratic had sincere respect for their art. [Photo above of Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter]

At New York's Five Spot and other clubs where Monk performed, the pair were often seen climbing out of her Bentley. Inside, she frequently sat at tables closest to the stage. Her relationship with Monk was platonic. Monk remained married to his wife, Nellie, who was, in many ways, happy to share her husband. Nica took the pressure off of Nellie when it came to caring for Monk and dealing with his mercurial moods. Monk and Nica's bond remained strong until his death in 1982. By then, he had been living with Nica at her Weehawken., N.J., home for 10 years. [Photo above of Thelonious Monk by Herb Snitzer]

Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter died in 1988. She was a champion of many jazz musicians, and more than 20 important songs were written or named for her, including Monk's Pannonica, Horace Silver's Nica's Dream, Gigi Gryce's Nica's Tempo, Freddie Redd's Nica Steps Out, Sonny Clark's Nica and Kenny Drew's Blues for Nica. But her close friendship with Monk was especially important in terms of his spirit, his welfare and the joyous volume of material we now have from the pianist.

That's the background. Now here's The Jazz Baroness (2009), a superb documentary directed by Hannah Rothschild. Nica was Hannah's great-aunt, and Nica's narrative in the film is read by actress Helen Mirren...

A special thanks to Jimi Mentis.