So the end of this doc gives a story about Miles Davis hearing Nina Simone, playing while "off her medication" (near the end of her life) and playing one song - in her infamous Bach counterpoint style, while she sang a different song on top of it - melding the two songs together. Miles could not believe what he heard, asked for it to be played again and then said,
How does she do that?
Nina Simone plays a stunning Bach-style fugue in the middle of one of her classic songs This is her early in her career - also playing Bach - her favorite Western composer
At another point in the film - Nina is on stage and begins singing - and she then tells someone to sit down - and she says it repeatedly with so much anger that you can feel the fear in the audience. This was the period in her life that her daughter described as Nina being a monster - physically abusive.
So Nina also said at that time that she HATED the PIANO.
So she was living in Africa at that time - having escaped a nightmare that she called the United Snakes of America....
I didn't know that Nina Simone was part of an extended family with the wife of Malcolm X and their children were close friends. I had no idea that Nina Simone declared that she "never was nonviolent" and she wished revenge with violence against the U.S.
Nina though also married a man who physically abused her and she was scared - and he worked her so hard - and so she tried to lash out against her imprisonment. That is what drove her to Africa....
So she started out with her mom as the church preacher and she played church piano and she said,
the music was so intense that you left your body.And later she said she wanted to drive people crazy with her music - this was after she was trained intensely in classical music - even going to Julliard. She then realized she had been rejected from the top Curtis school of Music - because she was black.
So she had to support her family - and she began singing night club music - and that's why she changed her name to Nina Simone.
So she became a leader in the civil rights - through her music - and then her music was boycotted because of her saying "God Damn" after the terrorist church killing of black girls in Mississippi.
So her music became totally revolutionary in the lyrics and she lost her business career.
Also her daughter said that after Nina sang her protest song, "God Damn Mississippi" - she also lost an octave range in her voice....
So then after leaving her husband to go to Africa - Nina had so much anger that she was now abusive and explosive and she then went to Europe to make any money in desperation. When she was "discovered" by her old music friends - they got her put on psychotropic meds that caused her speech to slur and her face to have a tic - and her walking to shuffle...
So she began playing music again but it was only when she was OFF the drugs that she went back into her extreme experimental genius music style of improvising in Bach while singing Blues on top of it. youtube link
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