Friday June 9, 2023 at 8:50 p.m. on Arte, the program Music Queens devotes an episode to one of the myths of female jazz: Nina Simone. A portrait full of surprises, especially around the stage name of the artist.
Along with Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, she is one of the greatest voices in jazz. Her serious and deep timbre makes her one of the best singers of all time, according to the ranking established by the magazine Rolling Stones, adored by Barack Obama and Christiane Taubira -, among others. We even devoted a biopic to him, worn by Zoe Saldana. In short, it’s hard to get more famous than Nina Simone. But did you know that in reality, this name was only a pseudonym precisely intended to guarantee his anonymity and avoid the reprimands of his mother? It is on the origins of the stage name of the singer and musician that the show of Arte Music Queens returns in an episode broadcast on Thursday June 29, 2023 at 8:50 p.m. on the Franco-German channel.
From classical music to jazz: a broken dream
To understand the fascinating journey of Nina Simone, we must go back to the 1930s, in a segregated America hit hard by the crisis of 1929. She was born Eunice Kathleen Waymon, the sixth of eight children in a family as pious as they were musicians. It is moreover at the church that the young girl begins and very quickly shows great aptitudes for the piano and singing. His dream ? Become the first black classical concert performer. Only, despite her talent and her hard work, she will never succeed in integrating the prestigious Curtis Institute. A refusal that she will attribute to her skin color and the prevailing racism. So Eunice changes lanes, or rather, musical style… and becomes Nina.
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Nina Simone: her amazing bond with Simone Signoret
Because Nina Simone is the tough kind: we are in the 1950s and the artist is determined to live from her passion for the piano and classical music. To finance her lessons with Vladimir Sokoloff, the one who should have been her teacher at the Curtis Institute, she is forced to play and sing jazz in a bar in Atlantic City. To hide from her mother that she plays “Devil’s Music” and prevent her anger, she finds herself a stage name. It will be Nina Simone: Nina, from Spanish niña (little girl), is a nickname given by a boyfriend. Simone is borrowed from the great French actress Simone Signoret, whom she saw in the film golden helmet. It is under this nickname that she will experience success and will use her notoriety to fight discrimination and advance the fight for civil rights.
