Pannonica (Nica for short) Rothschild was born 1913 and grew up surrounded by immense wealth at Tring Park, Hertfordshire. In 1934, she was presented at court and a year later married the French diplomat, Baron Jules de Koenigswarter.
By 1948, the couple had five children, but during a visit to New York Nica heard a recording of Round Midnight by a then unknown jazz pianist called Thelonious Monk.
Immediately entranced, she listened to it 20 times in a row and, leaving behind her husband and five children in England, moved into a suite at the Stanhope hotel to devote her life to the musician.
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