I'm getting close to finishing a book about jazz called "Hear me Talkin' to Ya", so I figured I'd better post my review of another jazz book that I finished almost two months ago:
In my early days of learning about the jazz
songbook, I was quite clueless about more than a few things. To this day, I’m
still not exactly sure when I realized “Nica”, “Pannonica”, and the numerous
mentions and variants thereof, referred to one specific person. And of course,
I also had no idea why so many musicians dedicated songs to the same woman.
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| There are better, and many worse, shots that could have been on the cover of this book. |
This book was high on my jazz reading list for the
longest time, before I connected those dots, and while I expected “Three Wishes”
by Pannonica de Koenigswarter, late of the Rothschild family, to answer some of
those questions, that’s not really what this book is about. This book is a
compilation of Polaroid photos of jazz musicians Pannonica took performing (or
smoking, or sleeping, or joking around, or lounging) around her house and the
clubs of New York City. For the text, she asked (approximately) 300 jazz
musicians what they would ask for if they had three wishes. For the most part,
the answers are predictable and mundane, with money, health, success, musical
ability, loving family, world peace, and racial equality being the notable top
vote getters. Occasionally, one or another musician will flash a bit of
insight, promise, or self-deprecation that comes completely unexpected (Miles
Davis, for instance, had only one wish: To be white!), but for me, the wishes
were secondary to the photos and the overall collection of musicians’ comments.
Not all the pictures are really publication worthy, but that they even exist
makes them valuable and interesting.
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| Important? Interesting? Historic? Book-worthy? Uhhh...maybe. |
For such a thorough documentarian, I found it
unusual that some of the subjects of her photos could not be identified. It
makes me a little curious about how Pannonica could be so far above board and
yet so inscrutable. I guess that is a little bit of what makes the book
interesting: the mystery of motive surrounding this gadfly to and patroness of
jazz musicians. Anyway, the book does contain enough profundities and behind
the scenes looks at a long vanished era of jazz history, that the average
reader with an interest in jazz will come away somehow feeling privileged to
have been provided a glimpse into the life of some jazz musicians, or at least,
happy to have somehow sneaked a glance behind a door that was always kept closed during the early years of jazz.
I highly doubt Pannonica had a clear vision of what
she wanted to accomplish in compiling this book, but there is no denying that she
accomplished something with a lot of compelling qualities. Is this book a must
read for jazz fans and historians? Probably not. Does it entertain while
illuminating a few dark corners of jazz in the middle of the 20th century? Most definitely.
