Her approach to a performance stems from her above-expressed feeling on the subject she sets the mood with her piano, quite often at extended length and then she enters, in the same mood, with her voice. Her accompaniment, besides her own piano, consists of the sensitive assistance of Jimmy Bond, bass and Al Heath, drums (brother of Percy). Her talents are well represented in this set as she plays all of the piano, does all the singing, has arrange all of the songs and has composed the rhythmic “Central Park Blues”.
Nina is throughly schooled in music and she plays the piano, vocalizes, arranges, and composes. That she does with a vibrant and husky contralto that tonally sounds like a blend of an unlikely combination of Marian Anderson and Ma Rainey.
Nina’s musical philosophy regarding her singing is to-the-point enough to be stated in one telling statement - “You got to get to people”. It’s always pleasant to hear a good voice and hers, with its strong individuality, assuredly commands your attention while the aural reward for listening is bountiful. Nina Simone’s first few notes will immediately tell you into which camp she falls. There are plenty of musical singers who vocalize well and have an individual style but who never cross that thin and hard-to-define line that separates a good “pop” style from one that is jazz. A rare commodity in jazz is a new singer who has something different to say and sufficient technique and voice with which to express it.