Nina Simone, The Amazing Nina Simone

Nancy Wilson closed her greatest album, 1963’s YESTERDAY’S LOVE SONGS…, with a stunning version of Gordon Jenkin’s “Blue Prelude.” Coincidentally Nina Simone opens her 1959 debut on Colpix (which is most definitely not her greatest!) with a moody, quintessentially Simone-like rendition of this interestingly chromatic tune. Unfortunately the first track might also be the highlight of a somewhat uneven album – although the cheap boxy sound could be the problem rather than Nina’s overall fine performance or her eclectic choice of material. The arrangments – alternating between big-band throwbacks and classy supper-club strings w/ harp and flute – are by Columbia journeyman Robert Mersey who also worked with Andy Williams and Dion on some major productions for that label. Most of Simone’s Colpix output would  be contract-filling live albums before her career shifted once more into high gear when she signed with Phillips in 1964.  My favorite Nina Simone album still remains her very first — the one on Bethlehem originally called “Jazz As Played in an Exclusive Side Street Club,” later retitled LITTLE GIRL BLUE. There she simply recreated her nightclub act, complete with the clunky Bach piano exercises and a strong civil rights intention lurking below a deceptively genteel surface. @320