Nina’s music is always filled with a part of America’s soul, the smoky pubs, the radiant reflections of sweat in a swing that forgets the days. Nina’s music is like painting, a type of painting that seems to be full of Jazz colors but turns into Soul, a type of painting in the ultimate passion but doesn’t know what genre it is.
Like painting, not every shaky yellow color is Van Gogh. Nina Simone is a painter, with a brush braided from a golden larynx, she has created a legacy for America.
When the Jazz kingdom honored the word “genius” for Ray Charles or Louis Armstrong, it seemed to be the limit of all other efforts, and especially “genius” was a beautiful name not for women. That default lasted until 1977, in Cannes on a sweaty music night.
On stage is a black ebony lady looking down at the hysterical crowd. “I’m not a puppet to entertain you, I don’t put a smile on my face like Louis Armstrong. I’m me, a genius, God gave me that. I’m not here to entertain you. Remember that”, the crowd screamed even more fiercely, at that moment the music started and that voice suddenly increased its tone, changed its tone, became hoarse with I put a spell on you. The crowd below suddenly fell silent. Writer Nadine Cohodas, Nina Simone’s biographer, believes that this was Nina’s peak and the term “genius” was cracked from now on.
Nina Simone’s music has an endless appeal, at all times. Her “genius” is the ability to change skin color in her voice, even the listeners’ skin color is ivory white or black ebony, they are conquered by her. The conquest comes from the sexy breath, the larynx emits a deep, powerful sound, as if peeling off the hidden knots in the heart, gently shining under the sunlight. That voice does not praise life, does not please the ears with winged words, this separates Nina Simone from the leading birds, the giant money printing machines of Jazz represented by Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holiday…
But, like them, Nina is the most talented generation of Jazz, the one who laid a solid foundation for Jazz, the saint who made the singing of people of color uniquely positioned in a heavily racist world. Nina does not sing to praise life, but life praises her because that voice brings people closer together, that voice tells life painful truths, existential philosophies bring back losses that people could have done sooner.
But if it were earlier, life might not have been touched by Nina Simone’s singing voice.
Lesson: Kha Anh – Art Columnist
Continue reading Part 2 – Wild lyrics challenge life
