The Supper Table

I am generally ambivalent about live albums. They don't often offer enough to distinguish them from their studio antecedents, beyond audience applause, and lack the energy of being present. Nina at Newport is one of those exceptions. Little Liza Jane is infectiously energetic. I can't listen without imagining women catching the holy ghost around me, and You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To is a career making song, that almost no one has heard. I'm not sure if she ever recorded this in the studio, but her performance makes it feel like a Nina standard. I was single the first time I heard this song, it was winter, and this song made me wish I was in love and had someone for whom to play it. The long piano intro giving way to "you'd be so nice to come home to," and all I could think was, 'that's what I want.' So straight-forward, so simple, love is always so much easier in song. Nina Simone at Newport side1 Trouble in Mind Porgy Little...

I was hanging out with my niece recently, talking about music. She has a thing for what she calls 'old music' which basically means soul music from the late 80's early 90's-- which makes me feel dated since that's music from my high school and college days. There had been a time when my niece and nephews were young and I tried to influence their tastes in music and literature--mostly the graphic literary form known as comics-- and then I gave up. It's difficult to fight against the sludge tide of popular, trite top 40 pop. Although comics finally took a hold of my youngest nephew's imagination, music was always a more difficult sell. In our conversation I realized that perhaps, as one does with a beloved but slightly addled older family member, they just simply ignored my suggestions as the crap old people sometimes say. It's possible that she could listen to some of my suggestions with something like an open mind now. I remember discovering m...