Rubber City Review

Several things happened since I first posted this piece almost two years ago: 1) Based on my google stats, it’s still drawing a lot of readers; 2) A new bio about long-time Thelonious Monk patron Pannonica de Koenigswarter – written by her great-niece Hannah Rothschild, who also directed The Jazz Baroness –  is now available on Kindle (you can buy it or pre-order the hardcover at the end of this post); and 3) The Jazz Baroness DVD was released in the UK on April 30, which should mean it will soon be available in the U.S. Seems like three good reasons for a re-post:

“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 also appeared on HBO.

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 dug right in, because 608 pages seems hardly enough to cover one of the most important composers and performers of the 20^th Century.

Among its many merits, Kelley’s book debunks 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.

If you have any love for Monk’s legacy as a composer, performer and cultural icon, you’ll want to add Kelley’s book to your reading list. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this performance of Epistrophy from a taping in Poland, 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? I know there are better performance clips out there than this abbreviated take, but I like how the camera lingers as Monk and band screw around after the abrupt ending…

And here’s a more polished performance of the same tune – filmed live in Japan:

I’m a bit of a “completist,” but only with a few select artists. For example, I don’t need all 1,000 songs that Lightnin’ Hopkins recorded throughout his career. Just give me a little bit of this (the Herald Sessions), some of that (3-4 releases on Prestige and Bluesville), a couple of those (Aladdin, Gold Star, Arhoolie, etc.)… and I’m pretty well set.

Not the case with Miles Davis. The first time I heard his masterpiece “Kind of Blue,” I wanted it all. I wanted to hear everything even remotely like it… I wanted to hear all the steps he took to get there… I wanted to know how he managed to follow up on such an amazing piece of work… I wanted everything, and I wanted it now.

Well, that was some time before Columbia Records decided to release virtually every sound – including more than a few conversations – that he recorded in the studio. And even if those treasures were available to me at the time, I never would’ve been able to afford them (“The Complete Columbia Album Collection”: $237 on Amazon… and that doesn’t include the many alternate takes on the other Columbia box sets).

But damned if I didn’t end up with virtually everything he waxed all the way through the Columbia years. His earliest recordings with Charlie Parker. The Birth of the Cool. The Blue Note years. Almost all of the Prestige recordings. And yes, everything in the same zip code as “Kind of Blue.” As my sister Keena likes to say, “how do you have the time to listen to all that shit?”

Now subscription services like MOG and Spotify have spoiled all the fun by making these and other recordings readily available at one or two clicks of the mouse. But that’s OK. I’ve been listening to all this “shit” for years (as Miles himself would probably call it, or worse… read his very profane autobiography). And although I don’t pretend to be an expert, I definitely have my favorites in the Miles discography.

You’ll notice I don’t touch on electric Miles or the “comeback” years (basically everything after his ’81 release, “The Man with the Horn”). Actually, I hung tough with a lot of Miles’ electric stuff – especially “Bitches Brew” and “A Tribute to Jack Johnson” – and even found a few things to like with his pop-drenched comeback albums. But in my mind, the consistency of his brilliance drops off dramatically in the thick of his funk period, and even more during his comeback. Sorry, I’ll never equate All Blues with a cover of a Cindy Lauper song, no matter how well the latter is executed.

We’ll start with Bag’s Groove, by vibraphonist Milt Jackson. It’s one of those classic jazz compositions – instantly recognizable, often covered. Hard to beat the original, though, as Miles and Jackson were joined on the ’54 session by Thelonious Monk. An essential slice of jazz history. Bag’s Groove

I’m a sucker for soul jazz, and Miles practically invented the form with this extended workout from ’54. Horace Silver sits in on piano (I’m sure this composition set the stage for his many soulful Blue Note originals) and Lucky Thompson creates a smoky, late-night vibe on sax. You know you’re onto something special when at 13+ minutes it still seems a little short. Walkin’

Miles played this next jazz standard throughout his acoustic period. This version was recorded during one of two legendary sessions for Prestige (May 11 and October 26, 1956) that closed out his contract with the label. The band more than lived up to the title of the album “Cookin’” – it featured John Coltrane on sax, Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums. Is there anything more beautiful than the sound of Miles playing a ballad through the Harmon mute? My Funny Valentine

I included this in a previous post, but it bears another listen… many more, in fact. It’s one of 10 compositions by Miles on the soundtrack to the 1958 Louis Malle film “Ascenseur Pour L’Echafaud (Lift to the Scaffold).” Words like “searching,” “timeless” and “moving” don’t do justice to the opening of this song. I’m reminded of Sam Phillips’ famous description of Howlin’ Wolf: “This is where the soul of man never dies.” Generique

Here’s one of the coolest arrangements I’ve ever come across. The basic theme is a series of quick, stabbing notes – almost James Brown-like – that leads into a layered section featuring some wonderful interplay between Miles and his sax men, Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley. And that leads to some inspired soloing by all three (Cannonball kicks things off with great flair). If I could play jazz, this would be on the set list. Milestones

Exhibit A from the greatest jazz album of all time. If you have it, you already know what makes it special. If you don’t own it… OK, I’ll be nice this time. Just get it. All Blues

“Sketches of Spain” – the ultimate “let’s give this dive a little class” album. Miles and composer/jazz pianist Gil Evans realized the potential of their previous collaborations on this stunning release from 1960. My favorite moments are near the very end, in the 12-minute closer Solea. Drummer Jimmy Cobb starts crackin’ the rim, the orchestra locks into a Latin-flavored rhythm, and Miles dances around it like a matador toying with his prey. Solea

Miles dedicated this next tune to his longtime producer Teo Macero. Drummer Jimmy Cobb lays down a circular rhythm, and then Miles works his magic – jabbing it, caressing it, letting it breathe. Coltrane adds a gorgeous solo too. Deep stuff… from Miles’ ’61 release, “Someday My Prince Will Come.” Teo

Many critics prefer Miles’ performances from December 1965 at the Plugged Nickel in Chicago, where his second great quintet (with Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams) began deconstructing many of the standards he’d been playing for years. I’m partial to his live recordings at the Blackhawk (1961), simply because Miles sounds every bit as sharp as the fine threads he wore onstage. In his autobiography, Miles bitched about Hank Mobley’s sax playing during the Blackhawk dates. Normally I’d defer to the master, but Hank sounds pretty damn good to me on this outing. Neo basically is a jacked-up version of Teo, with pianist Wynton Kelly driving the rhythm a lot harder than he does on the previous cut. Miles’ playing on both is magnificent. Neo

The best performances of the second quintet are like great abstract paintings. Individual solos no longer really matter; keys and rhythms float away too. I stop listening for Miles or Shorter or any semblance of form or structure and just let the sound wash over me… the sound of five kindred spirits heading off into the great unknown. Masqualero

I’m not sure how long this video will stay up on youtube, so enjoy it while you can… Miles. Coltrane. Live. Opening number from “Kind of Blue.” This is why we live.

“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?

Photo: Herman Leonard

I grew up listening to a lot of jazz. Not the edgy stuff. My dad mostly liked straight-ahead piano players like Oscar Peterson, Erroll Garner and Earl “Fatha” Hines. He also had those “can’t miss” soundtracks for Sixties cocktail parties – stuff like Dave Brubeck, Getz-Gilberto, Charlie Byrd… even the ubiquitous Sergio Mendes & Brazil ’66. You couldn’t mix a Manhattan back then without taking a side-trip to Rio.

Pop had a big, clunky reel-to-reel tape player so he could keep the tunes coming without having to stack LPs on a turntable with an automatic changer. That contraption was reserved for my stuff, so I could listen to two sides of Hendrix’s “Electric Ladyland” or Cream’s “Wheels of Fire” without having to get my ass out of the beanbag.

After leaving home, I began to develop my own taste in jazz – and I eventually noticed that my favorite artists were conspicuously absent from dad’s record collection. Not just lesser-known but hugely talented players like Bud Powell or Art Pepper. I’m talking about artists who are universally recognized as the absolute masters of the form – Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins… How could my father reject these giants of jazz?

I knew it wasn’t a matter of race, because he had no problem expressing his admiration for Peterson or Garner. Then I finally realized what turned my dad against the titans: they were all junkies at one point or another (or, in the case of Parker, pretty much around the clock) during their careers.

Maybe he didn’t know that Stan Getz struggled with drug addiction too. Or that Miles beat his habit with the same single-mindedness that guided his best performances (he took up boxing to strengthen his resolve). It just seemed like, no matter how great you were, your latest long-player wouldn’t get shelf space at the Quine house without passing the drug test.

And that worked out fine in the long run, because all I needed was a little taste of the hard stuff – hard jazz, that is – before moving on to the main banquet. Maybe if I grew up listening to Miles’ “Kind of Blue” I wouldn’t be so attached to it today. Maybe it has greater meaning to me because I came to it on my own.

I distinctly remember coming across Thelonious Monk for the first time. I was in my teens, hanging out with a kid down the street whose older brother was a full-blown, drug-addled hippie. We found a record in his collection with an insane photo on the cover showing Monk as a fighter for the French Resistance. He’s seated at a dusty piano with a rifle at his side… a Nazi officer is tied to a chair in the back… other guns and grenades are strewn about… What the hell is this?

We dropped the needle on it, expecting something closer to screeching, atonal free-jazz. But the music had a strange, beautiful logic to it – like hearing an extremely gifted pianist play Chopsticks… backwards… wearing oven mitts… and maybe slightly impaired.

I sort of filed that one in the memory banks and went back to my steady diet of heavy rockers, including Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones. Then I went off to college, where I decided to expand my horizons by digging into the jazz bins at the local record stores. Couldn’t resist buying a used copy of “Criss-Cross” by Monk, which included the title cut and several other thorny originals. But the tune that really warmed me up to Monk was a cover of the old warhorse Tea for Two. You could easily imagine a big-band crooner named Vic serenading his favorite gal (Sal) with an especially unctuous version of this song. Thankfully, Monk took the usual detour by turning the song inside out, creating something far more mysterious than the standard treatment… Tea for Two/Thelonious Monk

So I was off and running with Monk… who was probably banned from our house due to an infamous drug bust in 1951 (he also was banned from most New York City nightclubs when his cabaret card was revoked following his conviction).

Then I picked up a two-record set of Coltrane’s best recordings on Atlantic Records. As Sam Phillips famously said about Howlin’ Wolf, “this is where the soul of man never dies.” I couldn’t believe my dad never told me about this guy. Once again, it probably had something to do with a fair amount of substance abuse early in Coltrane’s career – addictions he eventually overcame with what he described as a religious experience. Years later, it didn’t surprise me to find out that there’s a Saint John Coltrane African Orthodox Church in San Francisco – seemed like a perfectly appropriate way to celebrate one of the most deeply spiritual sounds in music. Here’s another radical reworking of an old standard… Summertime/John Coltrane

Some critics prefer Coltrane’s later recordings on the Impulse! label, including a few extended workouts that don’t conform to any noticeable structure… like, for example, a basic key and time signature. I don’t doubt these are important, transformative recordings – the jazz equivalent of what the Sex Pistols did to rock in the Seventies. But you won’t catch me listening to “Never Mind the Bollocks,” and I’ve rarely been able to hang with Coltrane’s manic, free-jazz excursions for more than a few minutes.

I keep going back to his best stuff on Atlantic, where Coltrane seemed to strike that perfect balance between playing inside and outside – much in the way that Miles walked the same line with his great Sixties quintet with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock. Miles and Coltrane were moving away from the show tunes that stifled more than a few players in the Fifties, but they were still tethered to something… even if that “something” seemed to be floating in space too. Here’s Miles at his ethereal best on a tune from “Sorcerer,” released in 1967… Masqualero/Miles Davis

I doubt if my dad ever read “Straight Life,” Art Pepper’s harrowing account of his years as a heroin addict. But he must’ve been aware of it (no shelf space at our house for Pepper either). His book is a completely honest and unapologetic look at what addicts do to get from one fix to another… steal, rob, lie and, in Pepper’s case, even pawn his precious sax. Pepper’s rough life – including a lengthy stint in prison – stands in stark contrast to his effortless and achingly beautiful sound, which often has been identified as part of a cool, “West Coast” aesthetic. But one of his best recordings was with a tough New York rhythm section that backed Miles in the Fifties. On this cut, Pepper had to borrow someone else’s sax minutes before he entered the studio (he’d just pawned his main instrument for a quick fix)… Birks Works/Art Pepper

Outside of Parker, the ultimate jazz junkie may have been trumpeter Chet Baker, whose many years as a heroin addict nearly destroyed his playing – not to mention his once model-worthy profile. Like Pepper, Baker was associated with the West Coast sound. And he also sought out the New York jazz mafia to help legitimize his reputation as a major player. But Baker never overcame his demons and eventually fell to his death from a hotel window in Amsterdam. Ironically, he was embraced by both the cocktail set as well as fellow junkies who liked to nod off to his tender ballads. Seems fitting that we should end this post with one of those ballads, from the classic album “Chet,” recorded in 1959. Never showed up next to dad’s hi-fi, but it’s a staple at my house… You’d Be Nice To Come Home To/Chet Baker