Jazz Articles about Nina Simone

Nina Simone: Silk and Soul

by Jim Santella
January 11, 2006

Originally released in 1967 as an LP, Silk and Soul followed Nina Simone's blues album by combining pop songs with soulful musical statements that included strong threads from gospel and blues. Two bonus tracks are included, both originally released as singles in '69.

Pianist Billy Taylor wrote one of the keystone selections for this album, “I Wish I Knew How it Would Feel to be Free. It's a spiritual piece that opens the door for Simone's crusade against ...

Nina Simone: Forever Young, Gifted and Black: Songs of Freedom & Spirit

by Jim Santella
January 11, 2006

While this compilation combines Nina Simone's mastery of the blues and soul singing, its emphasis remains on what she said. As an active participant in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, she wrote songs and interpreted those of others--songs that helped to raise an awareness of our social ills. We need her music as much today as we did then. Several previously unreleased versions of her classic songs appear on Forever Young, Gifted and Black.

The thirteen-minute ...

Nina Simone: Nina Simone Sings the Blues

by Jim Santella
January 10, 2006

She was known as the High Priestess of Soul for good reason. Nina Simone knew how to move you. Every time she sang the blues, you could feel it in your bones.

Recorded in 1966, this album consists of a reissued LP with two bonus tracks. There's an alternate take from the same session, and then there's “What Ever I Am (You Made Me), which was originally issued as a single in 1969. That one was done with ...

Nina Simone: Let It Be Me

by Jim Santella
August 17, 2005

Recorded in 1980 at a Quebec concert performance before thousands of adoring fans at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier of Place des Arts in Montreal, this just-reissued 33-minute album provides a personal glimpse of the persona that Nina Simone brought us.

The concert is unique. Simone performs some of the material alone, involves the audience on occasion, and works with bass and drums for a portion. Her audience rapport works well, since she talks to them in English and French. Informal ...

Nina Simone: Fodder on My Wings & Baltimore

by Celeste Sunderland
July 1, 2005

Had Nina Simone not gotten so fed up with the music industry and been so disgusted by racism in America that she left for Barbados, Liberia, the Netherlands and France, we may never have had the incredible songs that pulse and hark and lament through two landmark albums, Fodder on My Wings and Baltimore. However, destiny had its way and over two decades later these same impassioned tracks, remixed and remastered, are newly available and better than ever.

Nina Simone ...

Nina Simone: Baltimore

by Jim Santella
March 7, 2005

Nina Simone was called “The High Priestess of Soul." We remember her for the eclectic approach she applied to pop music and the emotion she poured into her music every time out. While Baltimore wasn't among her most memorable projects, it does offer a clear picture of the artist's spirit. This reissue provides an opportunity for collectors to secure a sampling of her lesser-known material.

Folk, pop, reggae, and gospel all come together on one program where Simone ...

Nina Simone: Recognition of a Signifyin' Songbird

by Marc Minsker
January 16, 2005

Nina Simone spent her entire life jumping. Jumping from one continent to another, from the South to the North, from the church to the blues, from jazz to pop. Her incredibly diverse repertoire demonstrates the kind of genre-hopping she undertook during her long and illustrious career. But what's most impressive about Nina Simone's work is not the sheer the number of songs she sang and played on piano (well over 500 tunes at one point) nor is it her distinct, ...