What Happened, Miss Simone?

[JSngry]

Now on Netflix, and highly recommended. Can't say that I've ever really dug into her records, but this film is not about records, it's about (a) life, and as such proved to be rather intensely compelling.

[MomsMobley]

Concur. The biography is greater than a good % of music per se (Mr Bojangles is vomitous, Beatles covers worse than that etc etc) but lest we forget black ("as night") woman negotiating racist America, brutal show & record biz etc... "Ain't Got No" from "Hair" is excellent however, "Rich Girl" not bad... Was she a hard ass? She'd have been crazy if she wasn't (see also, say, Carmen McRae...) Her "Notes and Tones" interview was good also. I wish her "Brown Eyed Handsome Man" was better but... alas.

 

 

[JSngry]

I had no real idea about the impact of the childhood thing nor of the husband/manager thing. Like I said, I have not been a Nina Simone fan, per se. If anything, I found here stylistic mergings to be a little naive, perhaps even hucksterish on occasion. Well, guess i was wrong about that, like 100% wrong.

When Lisa Simone Kelley reflects on her parent's apparently volcanic/violent relationship and says, "I think they were both crazy", the need for the realization that she's not saying that as a mere figure of speech becomes most imperative, because, uh, yeah.

Psyches...everybody's are damaged to one degree or another, this I do believe. It's how it all gets processed and played out that is the roller coaster, and I would think that nothing would be as much a mindfuck as a roller coaster with invisible tracks that don't readily cycle back around to the same exact place every time. When is that ride ever over, and just where do you get off, exactly?

Edited June 28, 2015 by JSngry

[page]

I would have loved to have seen it, but I don't have Netflix. I did read about this in the newspaper when I was at work past friday, so I did know it was on. I am a fan and I think there isn't anyone quite like her. My colleague told me she has records and I didn't even know she liked jazz, so it was nice to discover a 'jazzmate' at an unexpected place.

[danasgoodstuff]

Nina has made it into the collections of a fair number of non-jazz people, or so I've found - YMMV, etc.

[AllenLowe]

I always like the idea of Simone better than the actual music.

[JSngry]

I always like the idea of Simone better than the actual music.

That's is what makes this film so compelling, that's where the focus is, the idea as it played out in the person, and, incidentally, through the music. Although, the few performance clips are top-shelf, each in their own way. The visual component is not to be underestimated.

[medjuck]

Nina has made it into the collections of a fair number of non-jazz people, or so I've found - YMMV, etc.

I never thought of her as a jazz artist though I like some of her work. "Mississippi Goddam" is pretty terrific   and " Backlash Blues",  which I think I heard for the first time when I saw the film, is good too.  Words by Langston Hughes. 

[duaneiac]

I look forward to watching this film.  I've long been a fan of her music.  Granted, her output is very much a mixed bag of jazz, blues, folk, rock, and soul music -- some of it works (and at times, sublimely), but some of it doesn't.  I don't think she thought of herself as a jazz artist since she never intended to be a professional singer.  She wanted to be a professional pianist, but not a jazz pianist.  She covered a lot of material in a lot of different genres, but  always made it unmistakably her own.

This clip from Montreux has long fascinated me.  She takes perhaps the worst popular song ever written and turns it into an unforgettably compelling moment.  This was not a "performance".  This is a soul laid bare, as real as it gets, as uncomfortable as that may be.  I don't know what was going on in her life at that time, but it must not have been a picnic being Nina Simone.

 

[Teasing the Korean]

Watched the film this evening.  I am a huge fan of her music, but there are so many things about her that I did not know. 

[mikeweil]

 

On 1.7.2015 at 9:39 PM, AllenLowe said:

I always like the idea of Simone better than the actual music.

Very nicely said!

I wonder if there's some opportunity to see that film over here - don't know how Netflix works.

Edited January 31, 2016 by mikeweil

[paul secor]

On ‎7‎/‎1‎/‎2015 at 3:39 PM, AllenLowe said:

I always like the idea of Simone better than the actual music.

Same here.

[duaneiac]

So what exactly is the "idea" of Nina Simone and how is it separate from the artistry which was her music?

I thought the film was pretty good, managing to explore different aspects of what must have been a complex person who had interesting public and private lives.  It may not be the definitive documentary about her, but it is certainly a good one.

[fasstrack]

I like My Baby Just Cares For Me,Mississippi Godamn, and Pirate Jenny. And she seems to have studied classical piano. Always had a good band, too. No worries about her artistry.

She seemed a tortured soul, though...

[Teasing the Korean]

1 hour ago, fasstrack said:

And she seems to have studied classical piano.

It was her first love, and the fact that a career as a classical pianist did not happen for her seemed to haunt her through her life.  

[clifford_thornton]

On 1/31/2016 at 8:33 AM, paul secor said:

Same here.

ditto. the film is really, really good.

[Teasing the Korean]

21 hours ago, duaneiac said:

So what exactly is the "idea" of Nina Simone and how is it separate from the artistry which was her music?

Yes, I would like to know what everyone's idea is and exactly how the artist fell short of it in practice.

 

[clifford_thornton]

Idea: an effective and intriguing blend of jazz, classical, folk music, gospel and protest song into one compelling, powerfully-delivered and immediate slice (for starters). Alas, it's hard for me to feel much beyond a surface curio here, although her personal story is deep and really quite sad.

[Teasing the Korean]

1 hour ago, clifford_thornton said:

Idea: an effective and intriguing blend of jazz, classical, folk music, gospel and protest song into one compelling, powerfully-delivered and immediate slice (for starters).

Well, those things are exactly what Nina is to me.  Also throw in Great American Songbook and oddball choices of pop tunes, all delivered with an air of mystery.

Her seven LPs on Philips are stellar top to bottom.  The earlier Colpix and later RCA are less consistent but all hit their heights.  

No one else did what Nina did.  Maybe some jazz listeners have issues with her because she is so much bigger than jazz alone. 

Edited February 1, 2016 by Teasing

[Hot Ptah]

I have always enjoyed Nina Simone's music and connected with it. I like to listen to it, period.

Just wanted to say that not everyone found the idea of her music better than her music.

[JSngry]

I really don't have/need all that many of her records, but having long believed that their is more to music than the records, anybody's records, the doc pretty much confirms for me that whatever the records are/aren't, the "idea" of Nina Simone and the "reality" of her were, in real time, pretty much one and the same.

[JSngry]

Whenever the reality conflicts with the idea, it's always a good idea to take a look and see if maybe it's the idea that's flawed, rather than the reality?

[Gheorghe]

classical piano ? Maybe that explains why I was so puzzled when I heard her version of "Good Bait" on piano. It didn´t swing. That tune is a number that swings by itself, if you can´t swing on that, no one can help you.

Reminds me of Gulda, who had to learn to swing and who tells in one of his books that Art Farmer gave him the advice "try to get that edge off".....

Dizzy used "Good Bait" to teach latin percussionists the meaning of jazz-swing. When they got lost, he quoted "Good Bait" and they knew where they are.....

I think, Nina Simone might get credit for being able NOT to swing on a tune that is the most simple lession for non jazz musicians how to swing......

Or, maybe that was quite her intention ?

[Teasing the Korean]

6 hours ago, Gheorghe said:

Or, maybe that was quite her intention ?

That's my bet. 

[Hot Ptah]

Nina Simone's autobiography, "I Put a Spell on You", touches on many of the issues discussed in this thread.