Ha Asonot Shel Nina Nina's Tragedies (2003)

Nina Simone spent time recording with Verve or the associated Philips during the mid-'60s, so her entry in the label's 2003 The Diva Series focuses on that period, when she had an R&B hit with "I Put a Spell on You" and recorded many live albums. Though it is much longer than Verve's previous attempts, it certainly doesn't qualify as a solid compilation of Simone's career. A few career-defining songs like "I Loves You, Porgy" are presented in live versions which, fine as they are, don't rate with the studio recordings. For what it is, The Diva Series is a solid label wrap-up, including rarer material like "Wild Is the Wind" as well as a few classics like "Mississippi Goddam" and "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood."

Nina Simone was one of the most gifted vocalists of her generation, and also one of the most eclectic. Simone was a singer, pianist, and songwriter who bent genres to her will rather than allowing herself to be confined by their boundaries; her work swung back and forth between jazz, blues, soul, classical, R&B, pop, gospel, and world music, with passion, emotional honesty, and a strong grasp of technique as the constants of her musical career.

John Barry's best score for any James Bond movie – including the best song ("We Have All the Time in the World") ever written for any movie in the series – is reasonably well represented on this CD. Barry had already begun adding more diverse and complex orchestral pieces to his underscoring and greater lyricism to his songs with the preceding movie, You Only Live Twice, and he continued the process with On Her Majesty's Secret Service. The serious nature of its plot, however, and the unique mood of the movie, dictated that almost an entirely new score be devised: the brassy "007 Theme," which had appeared in three prior films, was absent, and the "James Bond Theme" was re-arranged. Barry also wrote one of his longest and most easily embellished action themes (heavily featuring the synthesizer, an instrument new to film scores), and dressed it up with a string section playing running scales that is startling to hear in stereo, with the discreet separation of the orchestral parts. And then there was "We Have All the Time in the World," the best song ever written for the Bond series; a serious, poignant love song that underscores the doomed romance between Bond and Tracy (Diana Rigg), it was sung by Louis Armstrong in what proved to be the jazz legend's final recording session.

Hailed as the ‘High Priestess of Soul’, Nina Simone’s unique style seamlessly fused jazz and R&B with her classical piano roots to accompany her profoundly beautiful voice. From classics such as ‘I Loves You Porgy’ and ‘My Baby Just Cares For Me’ to dynamic live recordings from her creative heyday, this collection charts her rise to stardom and shows why she remains a hugely inspirational figure to this day.

Eunice Kathleen Waymon (February 21, 1933 – April 21, 2003), known professionally as Nina Simone, was an American singer, songwriter, musician, arranger, and civil rights activist. Her music spanned a broad range of musical styles including classical, jazz, blues, folk, R&B, gospel, and pop.