Nina Simone

★★★★

The Montreux Years BMG. CD/DL

The High Priestess of soul, captured in one place but not at one time.

Sited on the eastern shore of Lake Geneva, Montreux has been a magnet for musicians for decades, and Claude Nobs’ jazz festival had many artists on repeat dial. Here, excerpts from Nina Simone’s several visits (1976, 1981, 1987 and 1990) are harvested along with another 13 songs from her terrific performance on June 16, 1968, the festival’s second year. Simone’s voice is still young but already rich in experience and understanding as she moves from a feisty Go To Hell through the tuneful standard Just In Time into When I Was A Young Girl, the traditional ballad familiar as One Morning In May that follows a young woman’s journey “out of the alehouse and into the jailhouse”. Two Bee Gees covers, To Love Somebody and lesserknown Please Read Me, done as a sort of chamber piece, and unexpectedly uptempo versions of House Of The Rising Sun and Gin House Blues, are some of the surprises and delights. (NB: Parts of the concert were released as long ago as 1972 as Live In Europe.) A less satisfying The Montreux

Years from Etta James is also available.

Geoff Brown