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Nina Simone: Little Girl Blue

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Bethlehem Records
Released: 1958.06.24
Time:
 41:24
Category: Vocal, Soul, Jazz
Producer(s): Joseph Muranyi
Rating:
Media type: CD
Web address: www.ninasimone.com
Appears with:
Purchase date: 2012
Price in €: 1,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Mood Indigo - (Duke Ellington, Barney Bigard, Irving Mills) -  4:02
[2] Don't Smoke in Bed - (Willard Robison) - 3:11
[3] He Needs Me - (Arthur Hamilton) - 2:30
[4] Little Girl Blue - (Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart) - 4:18
[5] Love Me or Leave Me - (Walter Donaldson, Gus Kahn) - 3:22
[6] My Baby Just Cares for Me - (Walter Donaldson, Gus Kahn) - 3:38
[7] Good Bait [Instrumental] - (Count Basie,Tadd Dameron) - 5:27
[8] Plain Gold Ring - (George Stone) - 3:50
[9] You'll Never Walk Alone [Instrumental] - (Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II) - 3:47
[10] I Loves You Porgy - (DuBose Heyward, George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin) - 4:10
[11] Central Park Blues [Instrumental] - (Nina Simone) - 3:06

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Nina Simone - Vocals, Piano, Arrangements

Jimmy Bond - Double Bass
Albert "Tootie" Heath - Drums

Joseph Muranyi - Liner Notes, Producer
Rick Essig - Engineer
Saul Davis - Special Project Consultant
Len Fico - Project Coordinator
Tom Moultom - Compilation, Remastering
Scott Yanow - Liner Notes

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


1958 LP Bethlehem Records BCP-6028

Recorded in New York City, December 1957.

This album is also known as "Jazz As Played In An Exclusive Side Street Club." However, the back cover and vinyl label read "Little Girl Blue."

The first album by Nina Simone was recorded for the Bethlehem label in late 1957 and released in 1958. It contains the song "My Baby Just Cares For Me", which became a hit in the mid 80's generated by an animated music video heavily played on MTV. Nina Simone was paid a one-time $3,000 for the royalties for the recording. The album has been re-released by numerous labels with variations in title and design, some of which incorrectly imply a best of collection or a compilation.



Little Girl Blue, released in 1957, was Nina Simone's first recording, originally issued on the Bethlehem label. Backed by bassist Jimmy Bond and Albert "Tootie" Heath, it showcases her ballad voice as one of mystery and sensuality and showcases her up-tempo jazz style with authority and an enigmatic down-home feel that is nonetheless elegant. The album also introduced a fine jazz pianist. Simone was a solid improviser who never strayed far from the blues. Check the opener, her reading of Duke Ellington's "Mood Indigo," which finger-pops and swings while keeping the phrasing deep-blue. It is contrasted immediately with one of the - if not the - definitive reads of Willard Robison's steamy leave-your-lover ballad "Don't Smoke in Bed." The title track, written by Rodgers & Hart, features "Good King Wenceslas" as a classical prelude to one of the most beautiful pop ballads ever written. It is followed immediately by the funky swing in "Love Me or Leave Me" with a smoking little piano solo in the bridge where Bach meets Horace Silver and Bobby Timmons. It's also interesting to note that while this was her first recording, the record's grooves evidence an artist who arrives fully formed; many of the traits Simone displayed throughout her career as not only a vocalist and pianist but as an arranger are put on first notice here. "My Baby Just Cares for Me" has a stride shuffle that is extrapolated on in the piano break. Her instrumental and improvising skills are put to good use on Tadd Dameron's "Good Bait," which is transformed into something classical from its original bebop intent. "You'll Never Walk Alone" feels more like some regal gospel song than the Rodgers & Hammerstein show tune it was. Of course, one of Simone's signature tunes was her version of "I Loves You, Porgy," which appears here for the first time and was released as a single. Her own "Central Park Blues" is one of the finest jazz tunes here, and it is followed with yet another side of Simone's diversity in her beautiful take on the folk-gospel tune "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands," with quiet and determined dignity and drama. Another of her instrumentals compositions, "African Mailman," struts proud with deep Afro-Caribbean roots and rhythms.

Thom Jurek - All Music Guide



Little Girl Blue is the debut album by Jazz singer/pianist/songwriter Nina Simone (1933–2003) for Bethlehem Records. It was also released as Jazz as Played in an Exclusive Side Street Club. Nina was in her mid-20s at the time of this album, and still aspiring to be a classical concert pianist. She immediately sold the rights for the songs on this album to Bethlehem for $3,000. In the end, this cost her royalty profits of more than a million dollars. Simone was dissatisfied by the lack of effort the record company took in promoting her, and after this album she went over for a long relationship with Colpix Records. The album Nina Simone and Her Friends was released after she left, without her consent, and comprised songs that were left over from the Little Girl Blue recording session.

The original 1958 album was released in mono, but a second issue the following year, by Bethlehem Records (SBCP-6028), was stereo.

"I Loves You Porgy", from George Gershwin's opera Porgy & Bess. This was the song that started Simone's career. The single became her only Billboard top 20 hit in the United States. "Mood Indigo", also featured on Let It All Out. "Love Me or Leave Me" featured on the soundtrack of Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss (1998), also features on Let It All Out. "Plain Gold Ring" was later covered by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, White Magic and New Zealand singer Kimbra. Simone's version was also incorporated into the song Deadly Species by Alif Tree for their album French Cuisine. "My Baby Just Cares for Me" was Simone's biggest hit. It was one of the last songs she recorded during the session, because the record label wanted an uptempo song to finish with. The fairly obscure song became a hit when it was re-released in 1987, after it had featured in a UK commercial for the Chanel No.5 perfume. It helped the almost forgotten Simone back into the limelight. "Central Park Blues" was created and recorded in a single take. The record company needed another song so Simone drew inspiration from a photo shoot earlier in the day at Central Park. "Little Girl Blue" is a modern example of a quodlibet. In this case Simone combined the Rodgers and Hart melody and lyrics with the melody of the popular carol "Good King Wenceslas".

Wikipedia.org
 

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