The company that owns the digital radio station "theJazz" has announced that the station is closing down at the end of March, barely more than a year since it opened. So it is hardly a propitious time to release an album with this title. Perhaps the CD should have been called theJazz Doesn't Play Nina Simone.
Nevertheless, this is a good representative selection from the work of a singing pianist who always seemed to be outside the jazz mainstream. She is not even mentioned in some jazz reference books, perhaps for the snobbish reason that some of her singles got into the pop charts and have even been used in TV commercials (but so have those of Louis Armstrong - the subject of theJazz's previous release). Certainly Simone was the kind of artist who appeals to people who don't normally regard themselves as jazz fans. This album includes such popular hits as I Put a Spell on You and My Baby Just Cares For me but unaccountably omits To Love Somebody, which got into the UK Top Five in 1969.
However popular she was, and despite her classical training, she was undoubtedly a jazz performer - and a unique one. Her voice was deep and she often used a very wide vibrato, putting songs across with a passion which also found voice in her political activism. But this passion gave a forcefulness to many of her performances: whether an optimistic song like Feeling Good or the sombre Strange Fruit (here performed very histrionically). Her piano style was often thumping - even ponderous - a quality she shared with Dave Brubeck (another classically-influenced pianist). And she took material from whatever sources she pleased - popular songs, show tunes, folk and gospel songs, as well as jazz standards and her own originals. Who else would take the Ellington tune Mood Indigo as she does on this CD - as a fast swing number? She was not always the subtlest of performers, although a track like Black is the Colour of My True Love's Hair shows that she could be tender and restrained.
Nina left the USA in 1974 and eventually settled in the south of France, where she died in 2003. However you categorize her, she certainly left her mark on music.
As with previous issues in this outstanding series from Martha Argerich's Lugano Festival, the performers included here range from acknowledged masters such as cellist Mischa Maisky and pianist Stephen Kovacevich to near unknowns such as bassoonist Vincent Godel and clarinetist Corrado Giuffredi. Likewise, the repertoire ranges from the fairly well-known Schumann D minor Violin Sonata and Janácek Concertino to the virtually unknown Arensky Piano Quintet and Pletnev Fantasia elvetica. But no matter the performers or the repertoire, the results are superlative.
Martha Argerich's annual appearances at the Lugano Festival are highly sought after by her fans. Featuring the Argentinean pianist plus any number of her friends and protégés in a huge range of repertoire, the performances are as enjoyable as they are unusual and as thrilling as they are insightful. EMI began releasing three-disc sets containing a selection of the Lugano Festival's finest performances in 2002. In this set from the 2007 festival, Argerich is joined by such old friends as cellist Mischa Maisky and violinist Renaud Capuçon and by such recent protégés as pianists Nicholas Angelich and Gabriela Montero in works that range from Beethoven's Piano Trio No. 4 through Glinka's Grand Sextet to Lutoslawski's Variations on a Theme of Paganini.