List Price: $ 11.98
Price: $ 5.94
Nina Simone, born Eunice Kathleen Waymon on February 21, 1933, of North Carolina has provided many decades of heartfelt and defiant music bathed in a jumbled blend of classical, jazz, and blues.
This is the first Nina Simone CD I have purchased and I am glad that I chose this CD as an introduction.
I have listened to a variety of Jazz female vocalists/musicians and Nina is vibrant, headstrong, poignant, and intelligent.
Each song is caked with significance. It is an album that makes all emotions swell like a river engorged.
Track Review:
1. Black Is the Color of My True Love’s HairReview: Her voice is low and haunting like the fog that covers a dewy morning. There is a melancholy lust that weaves the tale of remembered and lost love. You really feel the loss and love.
2. I Put A Spell On YouReview: This could never be confused for the DJ Sonique dance anthem. Simone is firey, full of a growling headiness of desire in expressing her love but wantonness to control a lover that wants no part in the affairs of her heart.
3. Love Me or Leave Me Review: A beautiful and saucy mix of Jazz, Pop, and Classical elements. You really get to hear Nina’s passionate piano skills. Bach never seemed so playful and wily. With the addition of Nina’s frim fram lusty reminders, she really tells it like it is – example, “there’ll be nobody unless that somebody is you.”
4. Little Girl BlueReview: The song starts off with Simone using “Good King Wenceslas” as a counter to the precision jazzy background., which is stark and refreshing. “Good King Wenceslas” expresses the spirit of youth and the jazz lays the depth of experience. Simone plays a tug of war between reminiscing and a quiet sadness brought by a rainy day.
5. My Baby Just Cares For MeReview: Uptempo and irreverent, Nina states the facts and she shows her sassiness on this track. She’s confident and the music certainly reflects it.
6. I Loves You PorgyReview: A signature stamp reflecting the versatility that is Miss Simone. A smoky and sentimental love song, there is an earnest plea to be a woman wrapped in love. A longing to be held by a solid manifestation of her love.
7. Work SongReview: This song reflects the hardship on the plight of the black laborer during her era. This song is an earnest tale of how poverty and poor treatment can lay some rough stones for the path of life.
8. Ne Me Quitte PasReview: I think the linear notes really state the meaning of this piece more than I could. “Singing in a tired, cracked (not so cracked IMHO) voice, she makes the pain of clutching on to the last threads of love seem tangibly real.”
9. Wild Is The WindReview: Sultry and sweetly painful. As the wind blows, you see a love unraveling; touching briefly but only to be carried away serenely as Autumn carries leaves miles high into the sky. Nina’s voice reminds me of another singer who happened to be the frontwoman of a 90s group named October Project.
10. See-Line WomanReview: A song whose atmosphere lifts your spirits and embraces you in an energetic Caribbean-African ocean dance. The song features flute, percussion, hand clapping, and pulsating chant. Simone sings of a mysterious woman, a siren of the sea who can “make a man lose his head.”
11. Strange FruitReview: A cover of Billie Holliday’s signature tune. I honestly have never heard this song but have only heard of it through reading. When I listened to this song, I broke down in tears. The pain I felt in my heart clamped down on my soul and enraged me. The song leaves you with more than an image but your senses are attacked. I have never in my young life have been shaken so hard to tears by a song. This song is eloquent and engaging.
12. Pirate JennyReview: “A tale of humiliation and murderous revenge” as stated by the linear notes. It is a haunting song. The piano mimics the whole affair. Nina’s voice is vibrating tempestuous and quite frightening. This is a song of defiance and action.
13. Four WomenReview: A song that seesaws and makes you want to walk. Nina Simone sings of four black women of different skin tones but share a common plight. It definitely reflects the face of racism within a same race. Nina sums up that even though differences may be apparent, all African American women of all tones have shared many of the same experiences.
14. Mississippi GoddamnReview: The song has a show tune quality but there is an ever-present rage and heartbreak. She talks about equality of African Americans and speaks of the indignities suffered by tragic assassinations, murders, and slow change. This song is a very scathing accusation of American politics and values.
15. Don’t Let Me Be MisunderstoodReview: A very scorching and tender reflection of wanting some acceptance and love.
16. I Hold No GrudgeReview: A bitter anthem between the relationship Simone and America shares. Simone no longer…
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Yes, this is the album to get if you only plan on buying one Nina Simone album. But I guarantee that once you have heard it, you will want to buy more. She is truly a remarkable artist. Her piano playing is second to none, and she manages to interweave jazz, classical and blues in quite a remarkable way. Take her rendition of “LIttle Girl Blue” for example. As she sings, she is playing “Good King Wenceslas” on the piano. Truly unique. Then there are her protest songs that are quite chilling, especially “Pirate Jenny” and “Mississippi Goddamn”. I wish I could give this 10 stars as it is such a remarkable collection by a remarkable woman. Everyone should own a copy. The booklet includes a 2 page essay on Nina written in both French and English.
In the pantheon of jazz greats, I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that Nina Simone stands right up there alongside greats such as Billie Holliday. Her work even compares favorably with the instrumental giants like Coltrane or Davis; she’s that good. This cd is my favorite from Simone’s catalog, “Love Me or Leave Me” my favorite song. While less socially relevant than some of the other songs on this cd, it will leave YOU wanting to dance.
However, ALL of the songs on this cd are great. Some make you want to boogie (yes, I said it), some make you angry, some make you want to cry, but regardless, it’s hard not to be affected in some way by each of them. I’d also recommend Verve’s “Nina Sings Nina” cd.
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