Jazz for aficionados

The early recordings, as in VERY early, of Carmen McRae showed a perfect voice as clear as a mountain spring ! If you did not know who it was you would never guess it was Carmen .

Rok, you have provided enough for me to state my point.


Irvin Mayfield is the pianist for Dee Dee's version of that song.


Nina Simon is her own pianist.


Ella Fitzgerald's pianist was John Lewis, one of the very best. Nina Simone's pianist was
"Nina Simone". All the other "Diva's" had other pianists, while Nina Simone was her own pianist.

My point is, Eunice Waymon had no intention of becoming a singer; she was playing the piano at a lounge to earn money for piano lessons when they told her to sing.


Simone's music teacher helped establish a special fund to pay for her education.Subsequently, a local fund was set up to assist her continued education. With the help of this scholarship money she was able to attend Allen High School for Girls in Asheville, North Carolina.

After her graduation, Simone spent the summer of 1950 at the Juilliard School, as a student of Carl Friedberg, preparing for an audition at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Her application, however, was denied. As her family had relocated to Philadelphia in the expectation of her entry to Curtis, the blow to her aspirations was particularly heavy, and she suspected that her application had been denied because of racial prejudice. Discouraged, she took private piano lessons with Vladimir Sokoloff, a professor at Curtis, but never re-applied to the institution. She took a job as a photographer's assistant, but also found work as an accompanist at Arlene Smith's vocal studio and taught piano from her home in Philadelphia.

(Thank God her application was denied)


To fund her private lessons, Simone performed at the Midtown Bar & Grill on Pacific Avenue in Atlantic City, whose owner insisted that she sing as well as play the piano, which increased her income to $90 a week. In 1954, she adopted the stage name "Nina Simone". "Nina", derived from niña, was a nickname given to her by a boyfriend named Chico, and "Simone" was taken from the French actress Simone Signoret, whom she had seen in the 1952 movie Casque d'Or. Knowing her mother would not approve of playing the "Devil's Music", she used her new stage name to remain undetected. Simone's mixture of jazz, blues, and classical music in her performances at the bar earned her a small but loyal fan base.



All the other diva's had outside pianist, while Nina Simone was her own pianist, and according to my ears, she was one fantastic pianist; that's because before she sang that first song, all she ever did was "play piano"; all she ever wanted to be was a "Classical pianist".