For fourteen years, the Nashville Jazz Workshop and the Frist Art Museum have partnered to present Jazz on the Move, a series of Sunday afternoon concerts featuring the life and music of significant jazz performers. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic caused the cancellation of the series this year, but the Nashville Jazz Workshop is streaming past concerts on the Workshop’s YouTube channel.
This concert was originally presented at the Frist Art Museum March 10, 2019 in celebration of Women’s History Month.
Nina Simone was a multi-talented artist whose music spanned jazz, classical, blues, R&B, gospel, and pop. A gifted musician from an early age, she studied at Julliard before embarking on a career as a jazz singer. She recorded more than 40 albums between 1958 and 1974. She is most remembered today for her Civil Rights activism and protest music during the 1960’s and 70’s, which inspired many and also made her a controversial figure at the time. In her later years her musical output was uneven and her personal life erratic. Nevertheless, Nina Simone remains one of the most brilliant, challenging, and fascinating figures to grace the jazz scene.
