Nina Simone, Blackness, and Bach

It's probably been a year now since I watched the Nina Simone documentary on Netflix. The general contours of it are familiar: Star busts onto the scene with singular genius; enters into abusive marriage; suffers from bipolar disorder; wanders in exile from stardom; experiences late career revival due to help from devoted younger individuals who look past her troubles so she can once again share her gifts with the world. That's all interesting enough, since it all was true. But there was one aspect of the film that really hit me, and I've been turning it over in my mind for so long now I thought I should write it up. So here goes.

Simone's story hinges on a fateful turn of events, related to the racism of the times. As a young pianist, Simone's dream was to attend conservatory, where she would blossom as a performer of the classics, especially Bach. The trouble was that the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, where she lived, disagreed that their institution was the right fit for a young, black woman such as herself. Here's where fate intervened (and where her deep karma commenced its fulfillment). Fresh from her rejection, Nina needed to make some money, and responded to an ad for a lounge piano player in Atlantic City. Arriving at said gig, the management informed her she would need to sing, too. Well, Nina had never sung at all, but she figured she might take a whack at Gershwin's I Loves You Porgy, a song she loved. Boom. In that moment was born one of the great 20th century singers of popular song (whose Porgy, by the way, remains the definitive version on the song). 

A quick digression: I do believe she may have found a less racist conservatory that would have accepted her, but she immediately became a sensation as a pianist-singer, making the point irrelevant except as a matter of speculation. Moreover, I think it is likely that her impact as a classical performer would have been far less than her influence as not only an unparalleled performer of popular song but also as an avatar of unapologetic black consciousness during those turbulent, transformative days of the 50s and 60s.

At any rate, that said, the thing that I find most interesting in terms of its contemporary relevance, is the way Simone perceived the injustice she faced. For her, the problem was that because of her skin color she was being denied the rarified opportunity to engage with Bach and the classics at the highest level and to, in turn, prove herself as a unique and masterful interpreter of these works. This point of view understands that it is not only the individual being discriminated against who suffers the indignity of potential denied, but that all of us are impoverished, spiritually and culturally, in the process. 

It is here that I draw a contrast with how the contemporary "anti-racism" movement views the matter. For Simone, it is the denial of opportunity to develop her passion for Bach that is the problem. The new, purportedly more advanced view, however, is that the work of Bach is so tainted by the white, European culture in which he lived and worked, that to even express love or admiration for his music is to give cover to and be an apologist for white supremacy, since it suggests that maybe not everything that emerged from said culture is problematic or, indeed, even evil. Wow. A way of thinking that would imply that Nina Simone qualifies as a crypto white supremacist is really something to wrap your mind around. Simone was Blackness personified. I mean, she was intimate friends with the family of Malcolm X. And here is the rub with the new improved take on racism. In its attempt to find problems with everything it leaves us with a desiccated view of life. I'll even grant good intentions to the new anti-racists. They want to fully identify all our problems so we can fix them. But that's a fool's errand and a dead end street. Affection for the best the world has to offer will take us farther in the end.

A bonus anecdote: My favorite part of the Simone documentary was when she met Martin Luther King, Jr. As a committed Black Power adherent of the "by any means necessary” school, Ms. Simone felt compelled to tell the civil rights titan, "Dr. King, I respect you but simply cannot believe in nonviolence." King responded, brilliantly, "That's all right sister, you don't have to." There's a lesson there.