Nina Simonee Essay

Nina Simone, born Eunice Kathleen Waymon, was a composer, pianist, singer, equal rights activist commonly associated with jazz music. She was born February 21 1933 and died April 21 2003. Simone aimed to be a classical pianist while working a broad range of styles such as classical, jazz, blues, folk, R&B, gospel and pop.

Her stage name came during the time she performed at the Midtown Bar & Grill on Pacific Avenue in Atlantic City to fund her private piano lessons. The owner of the bar insisted that she sing as well as play the piano. In 1954 while performing there, she adopted the stage name Nina Simone. "Nina" (from niña, meaning 'little girl' in Spanish) was a nickname a boyfriend had given to her, and "Simone" was taken from the French

actress Simone Signoret, whom she had seen in the movie Casque d'or. She adopted the name Nina Simone to avoid her mother's religious disapproval of playing in a bar. Her performances at the bar earned her a small, but loyal, fan base and she began playing at better nightclubs.
She was born in North Carolina. Nina was the sixth child of a preacher's family, the sixth of eight children. Her mother wanted her to be the world's greatest classical pianist - the first black one. Simone began playing piano at age three. As a child, she sang and played blues and gospel on the piano in church. In her formal piano lessons, she discovered Bach, who she considered as much of an influence on her as the blues.
When asked how she became interested in music, she replied: "Music is a gift and a burden I've had since I can remember who I was. I was, born into music. The decision was how to make the best use of it."
She was denied a scholarship to the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, despite a well-received audition. Simone was later told she was rejected because she was black. Simone went to the Juilliard School of Music in New York in 1950. Her first recording session for the Bethlehem label came out three years later.
Until the 1960's, Simone had been singing love songs. She then took on the racial issue as the civil rights movement amplified. She felt that black politics caused the circumstances she understood since childhood, "The different worlds when she had crossed the tracks to visit her white piano teacher. She declared then, that while love songs had been her principal inspiration, there was a love that superseded it, the one that could bring her people together to secure their rights." [John Fordham, The Guardian, Tuesday 22 April 2003] The song she wrote and performed called "Mississippi Goddam" was an enraged reaction to the deaths of four children in the bombing of a Sunday school in Birmingham, Alabama, in September 1963.
In an interview she was asked about how she felt about being classified as a jazz singer. She responded, "To most white people, jazz means black and jazz means dirt and that's not what I play. I play black classical music. That's why I don't like the term "jazz," and Duke Ellington didn't like it either -- it's a term that's simply used to identify black people."
Simone later said that during a performance a while back, her parents, who had taken seats in the front row, were forced to move to the back of the hall to make way for white people. Simone said she refused to play until her parents were moved back to the front.
In the early 1960s, her involvement in the civil rights movement led to her music being highly influential in the fight for equal rights in the United States.
Just a few years before her involvement with the civil rights movement, she was approached for a recording by Bethlehem Records. Her song "I Loves You, Porgy" was a hit in the United States in 1958.
Simone married a New York police detective, Andrew Stroud, in 1961; Stroud later became her manager.

She performed and recorded a wide range of music. In 1965, "I Put A Spell On You" came out, "a fearsome measure of how hypnotic Simone could be",[John Fordham, The Guardian, Tuesday 22 April 2003]. Many albums recorded by Philips and RCA followed.

Simone recorded more than 60 albums and composed over 500 songs. She was the first woman to win the Jazz Cultural Award. She was also awarded "Woman of the Year" 1966, Jazz at Home Club and Female Jazz Singer of the Year, 1967, National Association of Television and Radio Announcers. I can only imagine her mother's pride, when Nina was only three and wanted her to become "the world's greatest classical pianist - the first black one."

On Human Kindness Day 1974 in Washington, D.C., more than 10,000 people paid tribute to Simone. She received two honorary degrees in music and humanities, from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Malcolm X College

Only two days before her death, Simone was awarded an honorary degree by the Curtis Institute, the music school that had refused to admit her as a student at the beginning of her

career.
Her musical style was a fusion between gospel and pop with classical influence, blended with her jazz-like singing. She was indeed a unique performer. "She injected as much of her classical background into her music as possible to give it more depth and quality, as she felt that pop music was inferior to classical." [John Fordham, The Guardian, Tuesday 22 April 2003] Her interactive relationship with her audience was created in her past by playing piano for church revivals and sermons regularly from the early age of six years old.
Simone signed a contract with Colpix Records Colpix which relinquished all creative control to her. At thet time, Simone only performed pop music to make money to continue her classical music studies. She was not happy because the contract she signed gave away the rights to her music, a mistake she bitterly regretted. She was reported to keep this attitude toward the record industry for most of her career.
Simone's music was about love and respect, if not about the inequality issues of race. Her performances were told to be very intense and unpredictable. She had a unique way of portraying dignity and wisdom like no other singer/composer/pianist.
In 1993, Don Shewey wrote of Nina Simone in the Village Voice, "She's not a pop singer, she's a diva, a hopeless eccentric ... who has so thoroughly co-mingled her odd talent and brooding temperament that she has turned herself into a force of nature, an exotic creature spied so infrequently that every appearance is legendary."

Sources:

John Fordham, The Guardian, Tuesday 22 April 2003. http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2003/apr/22/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries

"Official Nina Simone Biography", Contributions by: David Nathan (RCA’s ‘Nina Simone Anthology’, ‘Simone On Simone’), Ed Ward & Richard Seidel (RCA/Legacy ‘To Be Free-The Nina Simone Story’), Rob Bowman (Jazz Icons), additional editing by Sarah Epler.
http://www.ninasimone.com/about/bio/

"Nina Simone, Singer", Jone Johnson Lewis, About.com Guide. http://womenshistory.about.com/od/aframer19511999/a/Nina-Simone.htm

Wikipedia, Nina Simone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Simone

History of Music Compositions
"Sinnerman" & "Feeling Good" by Nina Simone

Nina wrote "Sinnerman" at the height of her Civil Rights involvement. She did write and compose many songs that encompassed the message of protest, however this song was different. This song references religious faith. She learned the lyrics of this song in her childhood when it was used at revival meetings by her mother, a Methodist minister, to help people confess their sins. The song is about a Christian revival, a story of a person "coming through" to God, although it was not considered a religious song! What the song means about has not been completely agreed upon.

One meaning of the song is clear, and it's that the song is about a personal turmoil.

She made it clear that she became very angry with American society. After the bombings of a church that killed four young black girls, she was enraged. After her husband talked her out of getting a weapon and going out for vengeance, she agreed that violence was not the answer. She focused on her songs, and the outcome included her composition of "Mississippi Goddam" and performances of Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit". So, how does "Sinnerman" fit in with the issue of Civil Rights? Many agree that the song is about America's turmoil and the "sinnerman" is the country.

Simone often used this long piece to end her live performances. She once said, "I feel my origins very deeply. My art is anchored in the culture of my people, and I am immensely proud. No matter what I sing, whether it's a ballad or a lament, it's all the same thing—I want people to know who I am" Gospel had a major impact on Nina, and this song definitely reveals that.

The song "Feeling Good" was actually written by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse for the 1964 musical "the Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd". The song had been performed first at on the UK tour on the Broadway

premiere.

Nina recorded in on her album "I Put a Spell on You" and became one of her best known songs. The song she recorded has been featured in many television shows, movies and even advertisements.

The song has a many meanings as there are people in the world. It is about letting go of the past and starting a "new day", with optimism. I believe she was drawn to this song because she wants the pain and suffering of the past to end, and start a new and bright beginning.

Time Listening Guide

Sinnerman (Album Version (Stereo))
Pastel Blues
Nina Simone
http://www.rhapsody.com/artist/nina-simone/album/pastel-blues

0-0:03 – Piano motive starts vivace (fast and lightly). Dynamics start mezzo.

0:03 - Tempo is reinforced by the drums, sticks on a closed symbol to keep it quick and clear. At :04 one ground base emphasizes the count, revealing the song is in quadruple meter simple division.

0:11 – Nina starts singing, "Oh sinner man, where ya gona run to". We have now hear the melody of the piano. This song is a dramatic since this singing is much heavier on the lyric than making a "pretty" sound.

0:21 - Ground bass changes from whole notes to quarter notes adding to the excitement and "rush" of the song, as if there is a need to hurry. You can slightly hear the sax, which adds more slowly. The theme of the music has been introduced.

1:06- Variation B has more saxophone, and double kicks on the base drum. I would call the form of the vocals "minimalism", since she is singing with a simple sonority, rhythm and texture. This also gives the "throbbing hypnotic effect" that I believe she intended for this composition.

1:58 – The variation raps up with a quick triple beat on the closed cymbal just after "All along dem day" which is the lyrical line that ques the next section.

2:00 – Variation C begins. The intensity turns up another notch with a slight increase in beats on the drums.

2:10 – Fast drums and a hold note on the word "Power!" and an imitation called "call and response" with other voices in background singing "Power" in unison, with an increase of sax notes. The tempo slightly increases again through this C variation.

3:31 – An interlude begins with a slap on the piano, then a powerful loud glissando. The electric guitar makes an entrance with a unique strum, and it begins to play along with the melody, almost like an improvisation because it starts kina "shy" just trying to follow the tempo. Maybe it is better called Grace notes. You can begin to here a more of a strum of the base, really following a simple duple meter.

4:10 – This bridge begins with a distinct clap of hands. At 4:24 the clap starts an even-note syncopation clap (on the offbeat.) It blends into a triple duple meter compound division, then finds its way back to a duple meter simple division!

4:53 – piano comes in with a new melody, not previously introduced. The beat now maintains a duple meter simple division.

5:46 – This development starts with her singing "Oh Yeah". The drums come in at fast tempo, and the piano melody from the beginning repeats.

7:08 – A repeat of variation C.

7:50 – It continues the variation but prolongs the song repeating melody and beat.

8:08 – a loud coming together of all instruments on one beat begins the coda. It has a quick beating of the cymbals, not held as tight. Her voice does the technique of scatting, when she is not singing any word, but hitting notes. It is also mixed with lyrics at time Lyrics are very Forte. An electric guitar his heard to match her voice at times.

8:37 – no instruments and you only hear her scatting, then singing. A light piano accompaniment.

9:27 – A quick recapitulation brings the melody from the beginning of the Exposition to reveal this composition is in Sonata Form – Exposition, Development, Recapitulation. An improvisational drumming takes place until the song comes to an abrupt end.

Feeling Good
Six Feet Under – Vol. 2
Nina Simone
http://www.rhapsody.com/artist/nina-simone/tracks

0:00- Nina sings only acapella.

0:39 – Right after she sings "And I'm feeling good" A motiv of a trombone comes in with piano in triple meter compound division.

0:47 – A violin very subtlety comes into the background and increases in volume. At 1:05, ithe violins begins to play quick instead of holding a solid note.

1:15 - She sings "And I'm feeling good." The violins and piano begin a new melody.

1:47 – The motiv of trombone repeats itself. Perhaps this is the melody, because it is the only section that repeats itself in the song The music never repeats. Each section is very unique from the last.

2:29 – Nina begins the scatting while a trumpt lightly accompanies in the background.

2:38 – She sings the last "I'm feeling good!" Much louder. The entire song cresendo's. She trills at 2:47, sadly just as the song fades out. It seemed her pitch was a bit dissonant before that trill.