Ledisi pays emotional tribute to iconic singer Nina Simone at the Mann
Singer Ledisi performed the songs of Nina Simone with the Philadelphia Orchestra on Friday night at the Mann.
by Shaun Brady | The Philadelphia Inquirer
When Ledisi told the audience at the Mann Center that “Nina Simone’s music saved my life,” she wasn’t being hyperbolic. The New Orleans-born, Oakland-raised singer recalled a low point in her life, when she was “sitting on the front porch of a house I couldn’t afford and figuring out a way to leave the Earth.”
Her suicidal thoughts were quelled, she continued, when the sound of Simone’s version of the blues classic “Trouble in Mind” reached her from inside the house. Ledisi’s rendition of the song, accompanied by her quartet, became an illustration of her return from the brink as the music passed through her body as a physical reaction.
Her gratitude to Simone eventually resulted in her Grammy-nominated 2021 album, Ledisi Sings Nina. She brought that repertoire to the Mann on Friday, backed by her band and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Despite the sweltering heat, she put on a virtuoso performance, never imitating the singular Simone but showcasing the staggering range and emotional power of her own distinctive voice.
The orchestra, under the baton of William Eddins, kicked off the evening with two pieces: the overture to George Gershwin’s musical Strike up the Band and an arrangement of Duke Ellington’s “Solitude” for strings. The Buffalo native then goaded the crowd with an ill-advised “Go Bills!” and an admonition for the Gershwin show’s failure on its initial run in Philly in 1927. Eddins won them back slightly with a plea to sign a new petition to grant Ellington the Pulitzer Prize he was denied in 1965.
Ledisi then made her appearance, wearing a red-and-gold kimono-style gown. Seeming to channel the full force of the amassed orchestra, her opening performance of “Feeling Good” was a bravura turn, plunging into a deep, throaty resonance then soaring into the stratosphere. She then brought things back to a more intimate scale with a sly, conversational take on “My Baby Just Cares for Me,” updating the jazz standard’s original cultural references to include Beyoncé, Halle Berry, RuPaul, and Michelle Obama.
The Rodgers and Hart classic “Little Girl Blue” was given a particularly dramatic treatment. The opening fanfare from “Good King Wenceslas,” an addition by Simone, was rendered by the Fabulous Philadelphians’ horns and woodwinds. Ledisi’s reading of the song was striking, plumbing the depths of her range for a mournful moan and ascending into an ethereal quaver. The stark arrangement passed the accompaniment among various subsets of the orchestra and briefly to the vocalist’s pianist and music director, Brandon Waddles.
“Do I Move You?” served as Ledisi’s demonstration of Simone’s sensuality (“especially when she found that African boyfriend,” she added suggestively), rendered as a snarling, down and dirty blues. The pendulum swung again for a breathtaking “Ne Me Quitte Pas” that neared operatic heights of melodrama. “Y’all didn’t know I could do all that?” the singer teased afterwards.
The rest of the concert maintained that diversity of mood. An offhand “Here Comes the Sun,” harkening back to Ledisi’s shy schoolgirl days, was followed by a pointed “Work Song,” with the orchestra’s stabbing punctuation and a percussionist rattling actual chains. The wind itself seemed to emanate from Ledisi’s throat for a stark, vivid “Wild is the Wind,” as her voice reached a high, keening moan. She was accompanied by her gifted 22-year-old guitarist, Xavier Lynn, who sensitively wove elegant filigrees around her poignant phrases.
Simone’s political side was evoked as the night drew to a close. Ledisi joined Randy Newman’s “Baltimore,” retaining the reggae tinge of Simone’s version, with her own “Shot Down,” a clenched-jaw song protesting gun violence that ended with a haunted howl that seemed to come from somewhere outside the singer’s body — or at least a place so deep that it may as well have been. She then erupted into an African-tinged “See-Line Woman,” featuring raucous scatting and an audience-rousing tribute to Black women.
A mesmerizing “I Put a Spell on You” brought the show to its concluding number, “I’m Going Back Home,” which Ledisi took literally with a New Orleans second-line feel, parading offstage arm in arm with Eddins. It was a spirited end to a powerful evening, a fitting tribute to a complex and brilliant artist.