Rereleased CDs of Nina Simone and Chris Connor
At the moment there is a play on Broadway, “Soul Doctor,” about Shlomo Carlebach in which his friendship with Nina Simone is portrayed. The actress playing Simone, Amber Iman, sings some of her songs and is charming, but she sounds nothing like the late singer.
There is also a biopic that has been announced about Simone, which has sparked controversy because of the light skin of Zoe Saldana, who is slated to step into the lead role.
Actually, the best way to understand the importance of Nina Simone is to listen to her recordings.
Simone, the late great singer-pianist-songwriter (1933–2003) had a voice that possessed a raw sound redolent of the blues and of gospel, though she could produce silken tones when the material called for it.
She was a Juilliard-trained pianist and used the instrument to either enhance the dramatic effect or to improvise as a jazz musician.
Ironically, her recordings, influential among other singers, became better known at the end of her life and after her death.
Naxos Records has just started rereleasing Bethlehem Records’ albums and in the first batch is a classic album from 1958 entitled “Little Girl Blue”; Simone accompanies herself on piano with Jimmy Bond on bass and Al Heath on drums.
Even at this early stage of her career, Simone was a fully formed artist. She created her own arrangements and, for certain favorites, she pretty much kept them unchanged for the rest of her career.
For example, she made several recordings of the title track by Rodgers and Hart, always with the unlikely (but affecting) background of the Christmas carol “Good King Wenceslas.”
She says on the liner notes that Bach was her favorite composer and she demonstrates this on her opening to “Mood Indigo” and even more so on her jubilant rendition of “Love Me or Leave Me.”
Simone’s later recording with the same basic arrangement is included in the Smithsonian Collection of Jazz Vocalists.
Her haunting recording of “I Loves You, Porgy” was the song that initially brought her to the attention of jazz audiences. “My Baby Cares Just for Me” (also on the CD) became a hit in Britain in 1987 after it was used in a perfume ad.
The only dated parts of the album are her interpolated references to Lana Turner and Liberace.
When this album was made, the political element was not yet present in Simone’s work—she later became actively involved in the Civil Rights Movement—and there are none of her own originals on this recording.
Chris Connor
Chris Connor (1927–2009) was one of the main exponents of the cool school that emerged in the late 1940s and 1950s.
Connor started as the vocalist with Claude Thornhill’s vocal group The Snowflakes and obtained greater recognition when she became the singer for Stan Kenton’s band.
She signed with Bethlehem Records, which simultaneously released two 10-inch LPs in 1954, “Chris Connor Sings Lullabys of Birdland” and “Chris Connor Sings Lullabys for Lovers,” recorded one week apart with different small groups. They successfully launched her solo career.
The albums were unusual for the time since most labels backed up singers with big bands or instrumental ensembles and these utilized small groups. The second of these is among the new releases by Naxos, and I hope the other one follows soon.
Connor is backed by bassist Vinnie Burke’s quartet, which includes accordion, flute, and clarinet. She starts with a classic version of Billy Strayhorn’s rumination on a failed love affair in “Lush Life” with its lyrics about wasting time with “jazz and cocktails” at “come-what-may places.”
The rest of the selections are also about romance, either finding it or losing it. Connor makes every word count without sinking into bathos. She lightens the mood of “How Long Has This Been Going On” with an easy swing beat and does the same thing with “Gone with the Wind.”
Connor looks distraught on the album cover (hunched over with her hand over her face) but the album mixes moody ballads with gentle swingers. Connor’s singing is as refreshing today as it was in 1954.
