The fire in Nina Simone

Issue 

The fire in Nina Simone

Nina Simone, the Legend
Masterpiece, SBS Television
Monday, September 13, 8.30 p.m. (8.00 Adelaide)
Reviewed by Ignatius Kim

"I refuse to call it jazz even though the whole world calls it jazz. It was a term invented by white people to identify black people."

In this Masterpiece episode, we witness the fire in Nina Simone, the fire that forged such anthems of black anger as "Mississippi Goddam".

In one part of the episode, we see archival footage of the civil rights movement juxtaposed with her performances from that time. The mass anger of the former is coloured with powerful, moving song in the latter.

The relationship seems intrinsic, for Simone as a politicised artist, like many of her contemporaries, had almost gained a raison d'etre in the mass black struggles of the 60s. Sadly, the demise of the movement towards the end of that decade was like a retreating tide that deprived Simone of her element.

Soon after, she went into self-imposed exile in North Africa and Liberia.

"All my friends had either left the movement, been exiled or killed ... there was so much racism in America I felt I had to get out of there."

One senses a feeling of betrayal as she talks of how much more the movement could have achieved and how little it settled for. "We should've had our own state", she declares, riddling the air with a cigarette in hand.

Listening to Simone being interviewed today, one still gets a taste of the kind of rage that unleashed the black nationalist movement over three decades before.

The fuel of personal experiences also burns strongly: her rejection in the '50s from the Curtis Institute, a renowned classical conservatorium, on racial grounds; unresolved differences with her dead father; exploitation by managers and recording companies.

Through archival footage, Simone's music, interviews with her and a range of people, a portrait emerges of a fiery, angry artist with many regrets and resentments. Yet she is not consumed by it all, as if there's an underlying belief that what could have been, next time will be.

When Nina Simone returned from exile in the '80s to perform again, she played and sang with the same intensity that marked her best years. Such fires do not go out easily.

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