Recently I had a chance to review a CD that presented itself as a “remixing or re-imagining” of the music of Nina Simone, through the eyes (and the very capable soundboard mixers) of a wide variety of producers. While I enjoyed the idea of the entire experience, I found myself with a lingering sense the actual CD itself just didn’t do anything for me.
Finally beginning to write this review of the newly released DVD Nina Simone — Live at Montreux 1976, I now know what was bothering me about my experience with the above mentioned CD. The only person that should mess with Nina is Nina herself.
During his or her lifetime, an artist has the right and privilege to interpret and perform his or her material in any way they choose. Nina Simone, especially after the first frantic wave of success, is a very strong example of an artist that did just that. In fact, not only did she choose to reinterpret her songs, but also how she allowed the public to see the artist that performed the songs.
For example, throughout the three different periods of her performing life preserved and presented on this particular DVD, there is a uniquely different Nina Simone on stage. Of course, in the strictest sense of the word, the woman playing piano and singing her songs of desperation and desire are comprised of the same bits, bones, and brain — but life experiences that she’s gone through have clearly changed her.
All three versions of Nina, though, would not have approved of her songs and lyrics being turned into something so innocuous as a dance/trance album. She would have stared defiantly at anyone who had dared suggest such a thing, and then dryly remarked they weren’t even fit to listen to her music much less suggest altering it.
That defiant sense of self and of self-worth is what I found captivating about this woman. Small wonder, then, that I found myself as equally captivated by this DVD as I was mystified by the need to even create that other CD.
The longest performance presented on this DVD is from the 1976 Montreux Jazz Festival. From the moment she is announced and finds her way to the stage and her piano, there is little doubt she is having second thoughts about being there at all. It seems she has no love of the music festival, and even less respect for those that come to hear music in such an environment.
Refusing to even sit until the audience stops clapping and respects that she is about to begin her performance, she takes command of everything. Okay, everything except a microphone that occasionally refuses to cooperate, but that is beside the point.
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1 - Connie Phillips
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