RCR correspondent, guitarist, plumber and Numbers runner Kevin Swan returns with a tribute to the blues legend who did not play no rock and roll, Mississippi Fred McDowell…

Alan Lomax pulled into a dusty gas station outside Como, Mississippi, in 1959 and met a man working there who played guitar, in a style native to his Hill Country, just east of and rising above the Delta. Lomax, an ethnomusicologist, and his assistant Shirley Collins captured on their reel-to-reel the middle-aged sharecropper and pump jockey playing and singing What’s The Matter Now. These were the first recordings of the man who would come to be known as “Mississippi Fred” McDowell: What’s The Matter Now/Mississippi Fred McDowell

A dozen years later, I was in Cheap Thrills Records in Akron’s Spicertown scrounging for blues records. The store manager asked if I liked the blues. Well, yeah, who didn’t? That fella sitting over there, he said, that’s Fred McDowell. We’re playing together this weekend in Kent… you ought to stop by and hear us. (Thrilled with the invitation, I think I forgot to mention I was only 14 and wasn’t allowed in bars either by law or by my parents.)

Bob Kidney, the manager, had just started his band 15-60-75 a year earlier. Named for the numbers gambling racket from the Harlem streets, 15-60-75 morphed into The Numbers Band. Their signature sound – a growling, repetitive blues – stems from and pays homage to the hills of North Mississippi and McDowell’s thumping thumb-bass, searing slide guitar style: Jimmy Bell/The Numbers Band

The folk and blues revival of the Sixties brought many forgotten or under-appreciated artists back to the stage and studio. British rock bands gobbled up as many old blues songs as they could, regurgitating them back to a hungry public. I and many others heard our first McDowell song on The Rolling Stones album “Sticky Fingers,” and their cover of You Got To Move. Their version re-makes the droning one-note bass foundation into a more easily digestible 12-bar I-IV-V blues; the original carries more gospel certainty with its dirge-like, repeating low note: You Got To Move/Mississippi Fred McDowell

Through a family friend I was able to spend that night in Kent and weaseled my way into The Kove to see the Numbers Band for the first time. After their set, Bob sat down with McDowell for their performance as a duo. Bob told me earlier this year that McDowell preferred to play alone and rarely played with a backing band. The loosely structured, no-chord blues of North Mississippi does seem better-suited to the solo guitar, as in Goin’ Down To The River:

Playing a lead section on open-tuned guitar that mimics the vocal part is another McDowell trademark. He said, “When I play, if you pay attention, what I sing the guitar sings, too. And what the guitar say, I say.” On Big Joe Williams’ Baby Please Don’t Go, McDowell slides the melody on guitar under his own vocal work: Baby Please Don’t Go/Mississippi Fred McDowell

RCR contributor and amateur ethnomusicologist Dan Auerbach – another Fred McDowell admirer – presents his own guitar/vocal doubling on the Black Keys’ seminal Stack Shot Billy: Stack Shot Billy/The Black Keys

Yet another folk and blues pilgrim made his way to Fred McDowell’s door in the early Sixties. Arhoolie Records owner Chris Strachwitz released Volumes I and II of Fred McDowell, presenting a lifetime of music previously only available at Friday fish fries or Sunday church picnics. Even after his fame spread around the world – between performing at the Newport Folk Festival and touring Europe – McDowell returned to his Mississippi home, working at his gas station (bought with music royalties) and playing on Friday nights for his family and friends.

A young Bonnie Raitt sat down with McDowell to learn bottleneck playing and voicings, here evident in a snippet of the early McDowell song, Write Me A Few Lines (and before you blues purists start to scoff, know that Bonnie paid for Fred’s grave stone when the first one had his name misspelled):

While it would appear that re-working a one-chord song into more standard twelve-bar blues (as Raitt and so many others did) would create more of a challenge, the subtlety of the Hill Country, North Mississippi style can actually be a far more unpredictable, complex and challenging feat to pull off.

“Mississippi Fred” McDowell passed from cancer in 1972, aged anywhere from 64 to 68, depending on which historian you believe. He was in his forties before he owned a guitar, was well into his fifties the first time he saw the inside of a recording studio and never became a full-time musician. Yet his unique talent and serene – if at times haunting – vocal talent remains instantly recognizable. Perhaps fame coming later in life afforded him a unique measure of inner peace.

The recent reissue of the Rolling Stones’ classic “Exile on Main St.” made me nostalgic for the days when a new Stones album was something worth arguing about…

Beatles or Stones? It’s one of those big questions – Republican or Democrat, paper or plastic, roll from top or roll from bottom (toilet paper, of course) – that supposedly reveal the very essence of your personality. And don’t believe those folks who say “I simply can’t choose between the Beatles and the Stones… they’re both so vital and important.” That simply proves that the person you’re talking to is a) full of shit; b) an inveterate fence-straddler; or c) both.

Put me in the Stones column. Don’t get me wrong – like every other kid on the block, I couldn’t resist the many charms of the Fab Four. I remember sitting on the family room floor with my older brothers and sister, watching the Beatles’ first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. Can’t say I fully understood what was going on, but judging from the near-psychotic reaction of my siblings, I got the sense that things would never be the same.

But I took a certain amount of pride in telling everyone that I preferred The Dave Clark Five. The band was named after a drummer who played like a caveman, for chrissakes! And I loved the big, stomping, four-on-the-floor beat of their hits Glad All Over and Bits and Pieces… not to mention their singer, Mike Smith (everyman name, everyman voice), who sounded like he’d been thrown out of the Beatles for bad behavior. So maybe the stage had already been set to embrace the sheer, decadent glory of the Rolling Stones.

Although my older brothers eventually became blues hounds and Dylan freaks, they certainly could appreciate the Beatles’ evolution from cute popsters to acid-fueled poets. I distinctly recall one bizarre conversation at the kitchen table that involved Jack and James deconstructing the lyrics to I Am The Walrus. I think they somehow discovered the true meaning of “yellow matter custard dripping from a dead dog’s eye”… only to forget it a few minutes later.

But it was just this sort of blowhardian (is that a word?) nonsense that made me realize I needed the rock ‘n roll equivalent of Muddy Waters and Jimmy Reed in my life. Leave the free word association to the experts, like Allen Ginsberg and Norm Crosby. Give me the primal poetry of Keith Richards’ grinding rhythms: Can’t You Hear Me Knocking

Keep in mind, the album from whence this awesome riffage sprang – “Sticky Fingers” – was recorded the same year that the Beatles finally went down in flames, following several years of sonic excess (e.g. “Sgt Pepper’s”… sure, it was mind-blowing when it first came out, but has anyone listened to it lately?) and other forms of self-indulgence (Number 9, anyone?). Thankfully, they woke up in time to record one minor masterpiece, “Abbey Road,” in ’69… and that was pretty much it, unless you count “Let It Be” (not me).  Before long, Paul had turned into the British dance hall dandy he always wanted to be, crooning strange odes to Uncle Albert and other misguided dreck.

Back to the Stones… At the tender age of 16, I attended my first Rolling Stones concert – at Akron’s unfortunately named Rubber Bowl. I couldn’t believe my parents let me go. Maybe I’d convinced them I was going to watch late-night soap box derby races at the adjacent Derby Downs. It’s hard for me to remember much of what happened on July 11, 1972. I recall enjoying Stevie Wonder’s opening set, until police in riot gear tried to make an arrest on the field (they had to beat a retreat under a shower of flying debris). Then I made my way close to the front of the stage, where I watched what seemed like a sloppy, drug-addled performance of songs from the Stones’ sloppy, drug-addled masterpiece, “Exile on Main St.,” which was released in May of that year. When I first saw the apocalyptic action film “Mad Max” some 10 years later, it reminded me of the Rubber Bowl at the end of the Stones concert – zombie bikers with hollow eyes, stray dogs roaming nearby, small fires burning everywhere… OK, I’m exaggerating (just a little).

The relative letdown of seeing the Stones live didn’t stop me from wearing out my copy of “Exile” that year, just as I did with “Sticky Fingers” the previous year. I couldn’t get enough of the thick, sweaty groove that Charlie Watts and company laid down on this one – a blues that had something to do with the lack of ventilation in the basement of Richards’ vacation rental in southern France, where most of “Exile” was recorded… Ventilator Blues

From a creative standpoint, things seemed to go downhill for the Stones after “Exile.” And the next time their roadshow hit the area – ’75 in Cleveland – my college friends had to drag me to see them. I’m glad they did. They were in great form, much better than the Rubber Bowl show. Although guitarist Mick Taylor was gone, they’d added Ronnie Wood and brought along both Billy Preston and Ian Stewart on keyboards. Preston was amazing… he had scored huge hits over the previous three years with Outa-Space, Will It Go Round In Circles and Nothing From Nothing. So we were more excited about seeing him than the Stones.

Jagger and the boys regained some relevance in ’78 with “Some Girls”… and any band that hires jazz sax legend Sonny Rollins as a guest artist (“Tattoo You” from ‘81) gets a lifetime pass in my book. But I have to admit, I haven’t paid much attention to them since then, except for the occasional remastering of their classic stuff from ’63 to ’72.

I don’t even mind some of the revisionist experiments that Jagger conducted on the bonus tracks from “Exile.” What’s not to like about this one? I’m Not Signifying

But mainly, the “Exile” reissue sent me back to some of my favorite cuts prior to ’72 – including a few of the tunes they recorded as unabashed imitators of their beloved Chicago blues idols. Here’s just a short list of some of the stuff I’ve been digging into from their back catalog…

It used to bother me that the Stones started out as a second-rate blues cover band. Now I can’t help but admire how ballsy these guys were, barely reworking tunes by Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. Don’t play Muddy’s original right after listening to this one… it would only ruin the moment. I Just Want To Make Love To You

A hidden gem from 1964′s “12 x 5.” This is one of those quintessential Sixties rock songs that make you picture a gang of teenage punks hanging out in someone’s dingy basement rec room – swilling Blatz beer, smoking cigars, shooting pool, busting each others’ chops… No self-respecting jukebox should be without this tune. Congratulations

Anyone who was surprised by the punk-rock attitude of the Stones’ 1978 comeback album, “Some Girls,” obviously never heard this number from “Got Live If You Want It!” A collection of small-club recordings from ’66, “Got Live” is far from essential. But their cover of the Bobby Troup classic has an undeniable edge… I’m guessing subtlety wasn’t a strong point of their mid-’60s shows. Route 66

If the Stones had disbanded right after recording this song, they’d still be considered legends of rock – and the tune’s signature riff remains Brian Jones’ greatest contribution to the form. The Last Time

I love the fuzzed-out bass that opens this very obvious tribute to the home of Chess Records, where this song was recorded in ’64. I’ve heard people say that Jagger’s a poseur… thought that a few times myself… also enjoyed the “rooster on acid” parodies… then I listen to his harp-playing on this tune and give the man his due. 2120 South Michigan Avenue

From “Beggar’s Banquet” – 1968. This may be the most underrated song in the Stones’ catalog. The opening sounds like something The Black Keys would be proud of. Then it builds into this glorious noise of scratching guitars and Jagger’s perfect howls… It’s no capital crime, but it’s still dangerous. Stray Cat Blues

We’ll end where we started – with Keith Richards playing rhythm, the way God and Chuck Berry intended. Listen to how this song breaks down to the brutal riff that kicks it off… then hear Richards answer himself with some tasty slide. Sorry, Beatles fans. This is why the Stones once ruled the world. Monkey Man

Keith Richards and Ron Wood, struggling to film a promo for MTV… I like how they snap into focus and nail it at the end. I’m guessing a few of their recording sessions went something like this.

Brother James takes us to the Dominican Republic – home of the “ripped parrot,” flame-throwing accordionists and the well-greased palm at customs.

I will never forget the blast of suffocating air that hit me when I stepped off the plane in Santo Domingo for the first time in 1980. It was my first excursion into the Caribbean and I was clearly entering another world. Ten minutes later I was in a small room at the airport surrounded by supposed Interpol agents who were searching me for drugs and pantomiming coke-snorting and joint-smoking while I kept repeating “No tengo nada.” Good times.

Accusations aside, I had actually come to the Dominican Republic with an archaeologist/author to photograph colonial artifacts for a book project that would bring me back to the island several times over the next 15 years. Things got better on subsequent trips as my Spanish improved and I learned that a mere $20 of  “paper lubricant,” placed in the right hand, would make for a hassle-free customs experience as well as discourage baggage inspectors from helping themselves to $40 worth of my Kodachrome. I’m sure the situation has gotten better since then… or maybe now they’re charging people for not stealing memory cards.

In spite of all this, the Dominican Republic is one of my favorite places – and I would go back in a second, mostly because I fell in love with its people and its two homegrown musical forms: merengue and bachata.

At the discos, I was hearing the usual commercial merengue, but also some wild accordion music that was different from anything I’d heard before. It turned out to be a type of folk merengue called perico ripiao, literally “ripped parrot”… nobody agrees why. It may have been the name of a brothel in Santiago where the music was first played. Here’s a sample from María Diaz, who calls herself “La Dama del Merengue.” El Hombre Mas Desgraciao/Maria Diaz

Basic instrumentation for perico ripiao consists of a tambora (a two-headed drum), bass guitar, güira (a metal scraper) and saxophone, but the principal instrument is the diatonic button accordion. The blind accordionist El Ciego de Nagua is considered one of the best. Clariza/El Ciego de Nagua

An American archaeologist who was working in the DR once told me, a little embarrassed, about attending a concert by a female accordionist whose stage presence was so powerful that he actually became frightened. He had seen Fefita La Grande, who is sometimes called “La Mujer de Fuego” because every place she plays catches fire. Legend has it that, at age 12, Fefita played for a member of the ruling Trujillo family, who was so blown away that he gave her a $5,000 tip. This is a piece of a live performance: Maria Pica’/Fefita La Grande

One thing that distinguishes merengue is the breakneck tempo, surprising in a tropical country. I love watching Dominicans dance to it. In the tropical heat, it’s all about economy of motion…

While merengue is honored as the national music of the Dominican Republic, when I went into the countryside, everybody was listening to bachata, a music that was completely ignored by the mainstream media for being corny and backward. In the city, nobody wanted to admit they listened to it, even as tons of bachata cassettes were being sold on the streets. Bachata is a guitar-based form with dark, pleading vocals and lyrics about heartbreak and bitterness… my kind of music. These days, it’s as popular as merengue throughout Latin America. Here’s “The Father of the Bachata,” Luís Segura: Dime/Luis Segura

Back in the early ’90s, everybody in the northern part of the country was listening to Antony Santos: Si Tu Carino No Esta/Antony Santos

I love this one from bachatero Juan Bautista aka “El Destroza Corazon” (The Heartbreaker). This is his mocking response to another musician he heard boasting about being “pegao,” which literally translates as “stuck,” but in the DR also means “hot” (in the showbiz sense). The lyrics play on the double meaning: “I’m a good man with a pure heart, and wherever I am, I hear my song, but never have I praised myself by saying I’m ‘stuck.’ And he says he’s ‘stuck.’ ‘Stuck’ to what?” Pegao de Que/Juan Bautista

Anyone interested in the bachata phenomenon can check out this excellent book: “Bachata, a Social History of a Dominican Popular Music,” by Deborah Pacini Hernandez.

All photos © James Quine, All Rights Reserved.

The Stanley Brothers: Ralph and Carter

I come from a big family of harmony singers. Myself, I can barely sing in unison… with Autotune. When my sister Caroline and I accidentally ended up at the same college for a year, she sat me down for hours on end and tried to teach me the harmonies to what seemed like the entire Emmylou Harris songbook. I failed miserably.

When we got together for family gatherings, my brothers and sisters would work out intricate harmonies to popular bluegrass songs. One tune in particular, Fox on the Run, required an extra voice… it had one of those staggered, layered harmonies, just like the Three Stooges used to do (“hello, hello, hello… goodbye”!). I’d always bring everything to a screeching halt by screwing up my big moment – I think it was the fourth “like a fox.” Many laughs at my expense.

But I rolled with it… mainly because we didn’t try to tackle that song until later in the evening, when just getting up from the couch qualified as an amusing activity. Besides, I’m perfectly happy sitting back and listening – because there are few things more sublime than the sound of clear, natural voices, locked together in harmony.

I think most of this need to sing came from my Dad’s side of the family and particularly his mother Sarah (Jahant). In his autobiography “The Time of My Life,” the late philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine – my Dad’s first cousin and guitarist Robert Quine’s uncle – describes what it was like to hang with his relatives who grew up in the shadows of Akron’s rubber factories:

“Our two subfamilies converged just once a year, after Christmas, midway at my grandfather’s house. With Grandpa and Aunt Bess we made twelve. Aunt Sarah would play the old treadle organ and Uncle Harry and my cousins would sing. I thought it admirable, and still do. There was no singing at our house. My mother played the piano occasionally and my brother and I were given lessons in the violin and mandolin respectively, but somehow it was embarrassing to sing.” Oddly enough, W.V. loved the harmonies of The Everly Brothers and at one party made my brothers Jack and James serenade him with a few of the Everlys’ hits.

There’s no mystery to why so much great harmony singing comes from the bluegrass tradition. Is there any other form of music as communal and democratic as bluegrass? OK, maybe African drumming, or the barbershop quartet. But let’s keep the focus on the human voice in its natural state (my apologies to you glee-clubbers and straw-hatters out there). And as much as I love gospel music, it approaches harmony more from the blending of big vocal sections, as opposed to two- or three-part singing.

Of course, the iconic bluegrass image is four or five musicians, straining to sing into the same mic, often with their instruments at their sides. So I guess we can thank technological limitations – or maybe a reluctance to spend a few precious bucks on an extra mic or two – for all the hard work that these musicians put into creating amazing harmonies with strong, distinct and soulful voices.

I’ve asked my brothers and sisters to give us a few of their favorite examples of harmony vocals. But first, a few thoughts on what it means to sing in harmony…

“When singing harmony, I think it’s helpful to narrow your voice a little to help it blend and, if you have a vibrato, lose it,” says James. “There are a lot of great harmony singers you wouldn’t necessarily want to listen to all night if they were singing alone. Also, a little dissonance is a beautiful thing.” Here’s one of James’ favorites – Tragic Romance, by The Stanley Brothers: Tragic Romance/The Stanley Brothers

“Great two-part harmonies can stand on their own as melodies,” says Caroline. “Uninspired harmonies tend to hang out on the thirds or fifths and follow the melody around like a shadow. Melodic harmonies, on the other hand, will stay close, open up, come back — interweave with the melody.” A good example is Doc Watson’s Your Long Journey (covered by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss on their Grammy-winning album “Raising Sand”): Your Long Journey/The Doc Watson Family

Jack offers some basic, straightforward advice: “Hit the note and make it ring… and pay attention to the phrasing – which was something that acts like Simon and Garfunkel and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young obviously worked very hard at.”

As an example of great harmony singing, Sister Mary points to alternative country favorites Buddy and Julie Miller: “The thing about Julie Miller is the timbre of her voice, which is really extraordinary. She makes the normal country harmonies seem special.” Music critic Thom Jurek calls them “the most important duet in country-rock since Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris.” Here’s the more rockin’ side of Buddy and Julie: You Make My Heart Beat Too Fast/Buddy and Julie Miller

Speaking of Emmylou and Gram, Caroline loves virtually everything they sang together, but especially this one from 1973’s “Grievous Angel.” In fact, all of us picked at least one song featuring Emmylou, which places her in the newly formed RCR Harmony Hall of Fame. Emmylou went on to a successful solo career post-Gram, staying true to their legacy by recording with great vocalists like Jonathan Edwards and Ricky Skaggs… Love Hurts/Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris

Jack has a weakness for bluegrass gospel – which probably offers more outstanding examples of harmony singing than any other sub-genre of music. The Stanley Brothers, The Louvin Brothers, Bill Monroe, Jim & Jesse, The Osborne Brothers… They all drew from a big repertoire of gospel songs that they would play at gigs that didn’t involve honky tonks and heavy drinking. Jack can sing and play just about all of them, usually with James, Mary and Caroline adding some well-placed harmonies. Here’s one of Jack’s favorites – Lord Protect My Soul, by Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass Boys. “Monroe’s vocal on this one defines the ‘high lonesome sound,’” Jack adds… Lord Protect My Soul/Bill Monroe & His Bluegrass Boys

Just to show that it ain’t all bluegrass, James singles out Bring It On Home To Me – a soul classic that blends the incomparable voices of Sam Cooke and Lou Rawls. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame named it one of “500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.” This song gets back to Caroline’s point: Both parts would clearly stand on their own as great melodies. And the contrast between Cooke’s silky soul and Rawl’s deep, rich voice only makes it better. Bring It On Home To Me/Sam Cooke with Lou Rawls

In rock, the gold standard remains The Beatles, followed closely by The Beach Boys. But since I live in a landlocked community devoid of sunlight for much of the year, I’ll stick with The Beatles. We could argue endlessly about which song best captures the harmonic convergence of John and Paul. I’ll just throw this one in so we can move on… It proves that harmonies sound cool even when one person (in this case, Paul) only sings one note: Please Please Me/The Beatles

Former hippie that she is, Mary can’t resist the intricate harmonies on Helplessly Hoping by Crosby, Stills and Nash. And, getting back to Jack’s comment, the phrasing in this song is just as essential as the harmonies. You don’t hear this kind of singing anymore. Hell, Crosby, Stills and Nash don’t even sing like this anymore. Time to bring back the bold scent of patchouli mixed with bad weed… Helplessly Hoping/Crosby, Stills & Nash

As Caroline and I talked about great harmonies outside of the bluegrass tradition, we both honed right in on one of our favorite musical acts – Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks. Part cowgirl, part Andrews Sisters, and certainly a product of the Sixties underground aesthetic, the Hot Licks’ harmonies are simply timeless. I’ve worn out several copies of “Striking It Rich” over the years… When is some enterprising music exec going to step up and give Dan Hicks’ early Blue Thumb recordings the “deluxe remastered” treatment they deserve? You Got To Believe/Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks

Jack believes no discussion of harmony is complete without mention of Charlie and Ira Louvin. “A lot of bluegrass, country and pop artists were inspired by the Louvins, including The Everly Brothers,” Jack said. Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris, The Byrds, Simon & Garfunkel and a whole slew of contemporary country performers owe a huge debt to the masters of “close harmony.” Here’s a good example, a country hit for the Louvins in 1956: You’re Running Wild/The Louvin Brothers

Obviously, Mary’s son Dan Auerbach grew up surrounded by a lot of bluegrass and harmony singing. Although he’s better known for some of the heaviest riffs in modern rock, he remains a big fan of family duets – especially The Stanley Brothers and The Everly Brothers.  Like the rest of us, Dan also loves the harmony singing of Gillian Welch and her long-time musical foil, David Rawlings.

Although she grew up in West L.A., Welch couldn’t get enough of traditional family acts like The Stanley Brothers and The Carter Family. And you couldn’t find better accompaniment for her stunning, unadorned voice than Rawlings, who seems to take harmony singing – and guitar playing – to a whole new level. Here’s the gorgeous number that opened her 1996 debut, “Revival.” Orphan Girl/Gillian Welch with David Rawlings

Nephew Dan and Brother James put on a clinic… Dan and James keep the family harmony tradition alive – from Dan’s solo album “Keep It Hid.” This was filmed at Dan’s home studio in Akron, Easy Eye.

“This is the story of a love affair between a man and a woman whose backgrounds and experiences, whose cultures and class were so different, that the chances of them even meeting were extremely unlikely.”

So begins the documentary “The Jazz Baroness,” a fascinating look at the 28-year relationship between Pannonica (“Nica”) de Koenigswarter – member of the wealthy and powerful Rothschild dynasty – and jazz pianist Thelonious Monk. Written and directed by Nica’s great-niece Hannah Rothschild, the film was first broadcast on BBC in April 2009 and now is available on HBO On Demand.

As writer Stanley Crouch points out in the documentary, Nica was “a complete European” while Monk, who he describes as “a Country Negro,” was a product of pre-Civil Rights North Carolina and a descendant of West African slaves. How did these two worlds collide?

Nica’s great wealth gave her the freedom to travel the world, but her love of American jazz brought her back again and again to New York City, where she became a friend and patron of the form’s most important artists. One of her oldest friends was swing pianist Teddy Wilson, who gained fame as a key member of Benny Goodman’s small bands.

Nica stopped by to see Wilson during a visit to New York during the late ‘40s. She only planned to stay a few days before heading on to Mexico, where she was living with her husband and family. Wilson told her she couldn’t leave without hearing this new record ‘Round Midnight. In the film, the wonderful British actress Helen Mirren narrates with Nica’s own words: “I couldn’t believe my ears. I’d never heard anything remotely like it. I made him play it 20 times in a row… missed my plane and never went back to Mexico.” She left her husband in 1951 and made New York City her home. ‘Round Midnight

The inevitable meeting of Nica and Monk didn’t occur until 1954, when they were introduced by legendary jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams. In the film’s second narrative, Hannah adds that Nica and Monk were hardly ever apart for the next 28 years.

“The Jazz Baroness” includes interviews with a number of jazz musicians, writers and enthusiasts, including Crouch, Sonny Rollins, Clint Eastwood, Quincy Jones and Gary Giddins, as well as T.S. Monk Jr. and several of Nica’s notable relatives. But jazz drummer and bandleader Chico Hamilton almost steals the show with two gems. First, in just a few seconds of scat-singing magic, he lays bare the difference between swing and be-bop. And in a second clip, he recalls hearing Monk’s bass player offer this observation about his boss’ unique approach: “Man, I’ve played with piano players who played all the white keys, and I’ve played with piano players who played all the black keys. But I never played with no motherfucker who played in between the cracks.”

Here’s Monk, playing in between the cracks: Little Rootie Tootie

Nica was a beloved figure among jazz musicians, especially those who benefited from her patronage. More than 20 songs have been written about her – Nica’s Dream, Thelonica, Blues for Nica, Tonica, Nica Steps Out… but the best belong to Monk. Suitably, his crowning achievement is Pannonica, from his thorny masterpiece “Brilliant Corners.” It features Rollins on sax and Monk on celeste – an odd choice for jazz, but maybe the perfect instrument to capture the essence of a name that Nica’s eccentric father first gave to a new species of butterfly. Pannonica

Thankfully, “The Jazz Baroness” offers nothing in the way of sensational, E! Network-style confessionals about the nature of Monk’s relationship with Nica. Monk would balk at suggestions that they were anything other than close friends. But his son T.S. makes the bold statement that Nica “fell in love with my dad – I have no doubt about that… She was profoundly moved by his music and personality. He was a good-looking cat… She was a hottie…” And that’s about as far as it goes. Obviously, Hannah Rothschild knows how to play in between the cracks too.

In fact, she offers the theory that Monk’s long-time wife, Nellie, might have appreciated Nica’s helping hand in dealing with a full-blown manic-depressive – an illness that only worsened in Monk’s later years. The film claims that Monk was diagnosed as a schizophrenic and received electroshock treatments during a stay in San Francisco.

Nica remained unshakably devoted to Monk throughout the rest of his life. She even took the rap for drug possession ($10 worth of weed) when she was pulled over while driving Monk and sax player Charlie Rouse to a concert in Wilmington, DE. Nica faced a possible sentence of three years in jail followed by deportation, but managed to get off on a technicality. “His protection is at the root of the whole business,” she later explained, knowing that her race and wealth gave her a far greater chance to prevail in court.

Nica’s influence also helped secure a long-standing and legendary gig for Monk at New York’s Five Spot Café. Here’s a 1958 recording from the Five Spot featuring “the Little Giant” Johnny Griffin on tenor sax, Ahmed Abdul-Malik on bass and Roy Haynes on drums: Rhythm-A-Ning

By the 1970s, Monk’s mental illness became far more debilitating.  He eventually moved into Nica’s cat-filled house in Weehawken, NJ, and lived there until his death from a stroke in 1982. During his final years, he stopped playing altogether and spent most of his time in bed, surrounded by books, magazines and records. “He wanted to get well more than anything in the world,” Mirren narrates as Nica. “He cooperated with his doctors 100 percent and tried everything under the sun, but nothing seemed to help. I only regret one thing in my life, and that’s not being able to save Thelonious.”

Hot New Artist: Thelonious Monk

“The Jazz Baroness” wasn’t the only major work about Monk’s life and music that debuted in 2009. We also could feast on author Robin D. G. Kelley’s exhaustive labor of love, “Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original.” And I’m digging right in, because 608 pages seems hardly enough to cover one of the most important composers and performers of the 20^th Century.

I’m only about 100 pages in so far, but the book already has debunked several widely held myths about Monk and his music. Here are just a few…

Myth: Monk was an idiot-savant – a jazz “outsider” artist who simply channeled his strange muse and received very little in the way of a formal education in music.

Reality: Monk was well-read, took advantage of the best musical training his community offered, was a master of the traditional “stride” piano style, and could play classical compositions by Chopin and Rachmaninoff. In other words, he worked hard at his craft.

Myth: Monk’s sparse, deliberate style wasn’t a musical choice – he didn’t have the chops to play any faster.

Reality: Monk could play blazingly fast if he wanted to, and would occasionally cut loose with Art Tatum-like passages to prove his point with fellow musicians.

Myth: Be-bop was fully formed during Monk’s stint as house pianist at the famous Harlem nightclub Minton’s Playhouse.

Reality: Many participants in the Minton jam sessions were swing musicians who struggled with the new form – so the recordings that survived could hardly be described as be-bop.

I’m sure I’ll have a few more to add as I continue to plow through Kelley’s book. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this performance of Epistrophy from a concert in Paris, 1966. Listen to Monk’s powerful left hand in the opening… a nod to past masters, like the great stride player Willie “The Lion” Smith?