LaLa Land

I just had to post this link -- Steve and I have been watching it a bit obsessively. I've been a fan of Nina Simone since the early 1990's when Flemming Tyler Wilson introduced me to her. He asked me one night at the Chukker if I had heard her and, when he learned that I had not, invited me to his house for an afternoon the following week for tea. Flemming was an artist and an antique dealer in Chicago before returning to Tuscaloosa where his family lived. His home was full of beautiful and eclectic art and fabulous furniture. He made tea and little treats to eat and it was all so posh for a young Alabama girl. Then he played Nina Simone for me and my mind was subsequently blown. I've been finding fragments ever since. I remember being most struck by her renditions of Bessie Smith's "A Little Sugar in My Bowl" and Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne." I think of Flemming whenever I hear those songs. You never forget the people who introduce you to great, life-changing art. One of my biggest music-related regrets is not seeing Nina Simone in concert before she died. The other is missing three straight nights of Sun Ra at the Chukker (not realizing as a very-recent employee that I could get in for free). Enjoy this clip of Nina Simone in her prime, in a sheen of youth and ability, at the berry-ripe age of 32 at the Festival Jazz di Antibes in 1965, becoming Four Women.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCwME6Jpn3s