Nina Simone - The Montreux Years

Nina Simone
The Montreux Years
BMG

This Nina Simone double album is one of the initial releases (Etta James being another) from the Archives of The Montreux Jazz Festival in conjunction with The Claude Nobs Foundation. The Foundation was founded to oversee the Claude Nobs audio and visual archives of recordings of performances at the Festival. There are 29 performances from six performances from 1968 to 1990 over the two CDs (and available in other formats including double LPs). The CDs are packaged in a small hardback package, including notes in the booklet by Stevie Chick and discographical information. The first disc is a mix of performances from 1976 to 1990, while the second disc is the complete June 16, 1968 performance. There are four songs on each disc. The two discs contain two and a half hours' worth of music.

What made Nina Simone so iconic was the range of feelings and music that she transformed into personal statements. Her virtuosity is evident during the opening instrumental rendition of "Someone To Watch Over Me." Still, her accompaniments can be understated at times, while her vocals of protest or joy take us from a whisper to a scream. Her 'lightning in a bottle" performances like a tightrope walker without a net. Songs of protest against racist injustice like her collaboration with Langston Hughes "Backlash Blues," with complaints about Blacks being sent to Vietnam while being treated as second-class citizens, and the well-known "Four Women." These are interspersed with a great interpretation of "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" associated with Billie Holiday or the jubilant "My Baby Just Cares For Me." Another masterful performance is her interpretation of Janis Ian's "Stars" about the struggles an artist test has with great success and yet great self-doubts.

Her initial 1968 appearance at Montreux has an equally varied and astonishing program of her piano and vocals backed by a quartet of Buck Clarke on drums, Henry Young on guitar, Gene Taylor on bass, and Sam Waymon on organ. Simone takes over the standard "Just in Time," slowing the tempo down and playing a splendid solo. One wishes the backing on this song was more in the background. There is a stirring rendition of an old folk song, "When I Was a Young Girl," followed by a deeply felt interpretation of "Don't Let Me Be Understood," where Young adds acidic guitar. There is the tender reflectiveness in her rendition of Jacques Brel's "Ne Me Quite Pas," pleading for her lover not to leave. With her brother Sam Waymon supporting her, she brilliantly reimagines The Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody" with a deceptively understated rendition. She also sang The Bee Gees' "Please Read Me" at this show. A stirring "Backlash Blues" is followed by "House of the Rising Sun," taken at a brisk tempo. Another adaptation of an old folk song is "Sea-Line Woman," a 19th-century seaport song about sailors and prostitutes sung almost like a work song. Among other memorable selections are "Ain't Got No I Got Life" and the moving closing performance of "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free."

Nina Simone was a singular artist who sang with inspired passion, improvised with her voice as John Coltrane did with a saxophone, and astonished listeners and audiences. This outstanding album captures Nina Simone's brilliance.

I received my review copy from a publicist.