{"id":105,"date":"2018-12-01T22:06:49","date_gmt":"2018-12-02T03:06:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus238-08\/?page_id=105"},"modified":"2018-12-13T20:06:16","modified_gmt":"2018-12-14T01:06:16","slug":"critics-reactions-to-nina-simones-performance-in-carnegie-hall-1964","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus238-08\/critics-reactions-to-nina-simones-performance-in-carnegie-hall-1964\/","title":{"rendered":"Nina Simone in 1964: A New Perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"

Understanding how Nina Simone\u2019s audience and critics responded to her 1964 performances in Carnegie Hall underlines my argument because it places Nina Simone\u2019s work in context with the Civil Rights movement occurring in the early 1960s, as well as with the entirety of her musical career. \u00a0The songs that appeared on In Concert<\/em>, such as \u201cPirate Jenny\u201d and \u201cMississippi Goddam,\u201d came to embody a politically charged direction for Nina Simone. \u00a0The emergence of Nina Simone as a \u201cProtest Singer\u201d and activist during the onset of the freedom movement led scholar Tammy Kernodle to suggest, in retrospect, that, \u201cBy 1964 a new body of freedom or protest songs (the terms are used interchangeably) written by artists such as Nina Simone [\u2026] came to reflect these shifts (\u201cI Wish I Knew How it Would Feel to be Free\u201d). \u00a0These \u201cshifts\u201d in Nina Simone\u2019s purpose for performing, presented on lyrically politicized tracks of In Concert<\/em>, also mark the beginning of Simone\u2019s international success and popularity. \u00a0Kernodle asserts that, \u201cby 1964 her eclectic musical style [\u2026] had brought her mainstream popularity. \u2018The New York press went crazy over me,\u2019 she later wrote in her biography. \u2018Suddenly I was the new hot thing.\u2019\u201d (\u201cI Wish I Knew How it Would Feel to be Free\u201d). \u00a0In fact, Nina Simone\u2019s new, directly political songs like \u201cMississippi Goddam\u201d received attention, although negative, in the South, as she herself writes, \u201cA dealer in South Carolina sent a whole crate of copies [of \u201cMississippi Goddam\u201d] back to our office with each one snapped in half\u201d (Simone 90). \u00a0During these turbulent early years of the Civil Rights movement, Nina Simone found a renewed voice for her music as a form of resistance against widespread racial injustice occurring at that time, launching her image as a \u201cProtest Singer\u201d and anti-racist activist.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
This is a newspaper headline quoting Nina Simone’s anthem “Mississippi Goddam” shortly after its debut in 1964. This image emphasizes her new politicized voice during the Civil Rights movement.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

However, focusing solely on the reactions and reflections of In Concert<\/em> from a political lens neglects the difficulty that audiences had in determining her musical genre. \u00a0For example, international reactions to Nina Simone\u2019s music right before her first performances in Europe in 1965 were concerned primarily with categorizing her musical sound and influences. \u00a0Writer Ruth Feldstein describes that, \u201cIn discussion of Simone from around the world, fans and critics gave up on efforts to define the type of music she played.\u00a0 \u2018She is, of course, not exactly a jazz performer\u2014or possibly one should say that she is a lot more than just a jazz performer,\u2019 wrote a reviewer for Down Beat\u201d (Feldstein 1355).\u00a0 This confusion of genre stems from Nina Simone\u2019s resistance to musical categorization, created by her angered vocal delivery and \u201cclassicalization\u201d of jazz songs explained on previous pages. \u00a0European and American audiences alike attempted to pinpoint exactly where to place her sound, which led to an unfortunately limited categorization that further angered Simone. \u00a0Later writing in her autobiography, Simone reflects on her career at the time, specifically mentioning a performance at Town Hall just before the 1964 performance of In Concert<\/em>. \u00a0With discomfort, she writes, \u201cAfter Town Hall critics started to talk about what sort of music I was playing and tried to find a neat slot to file it away in\u201d (Simone 68).\u00a0 She writes about feeling, \u201cas if reviewers and venue promoters were not listening to her, but rather looking at her,\u201d seeing only her appearance as a black woman onstage (Tomlinson 45).<\/p>\n

So why do we remember Nina Simone as a \u201cjazz singer,\u201d when she herself found that title to be racist and unfitting? At the time, the easiest and most marketable category for Nina Simone to fit into by the white, patriarchal music industry standards was as a \u201cjazz singer,\u201d thus she was promoted as such.\u00a0 For example, \u201cThe New York Times advertised for \u2018Nina Simone, singer\u2019 in 1961 and \u2018Nina Simone, vocalist\u2019 in 1963\u201d (Tomlinson 60).\u00a0 This problematic labeling lead Nina Simone to use her anger in a dual response to Civil Rights issues and against unfair treatment as a black female musician.\u00a0 When applying intersectional feminist theory to this issue inspired by Audre Lorde’s article on anger, it is clear that during the 1960s, \u201cblack women musicians were not only expected to perform in the jazz genre beause of their race, but they were also expected to primarily or solely perform as singers by virtue of their gender\u201d (Tomlinson 44). \u00a0Consequently, Nina Simone\u2019s anger, expressed throughout the In Concert<\/em> live album, responds to racism as both a voice against the widespread injustices of black people in America and also a way to break free of musical categorization set up by her audience and the music industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Understanding how Nina Simone\u2019s audience and critics responded to her 1964 performances in Carnegie Hall underlines my argument because it places Nina Simone\u2019s work in…<\/p>\n

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