July 13, 2023 : Wondercab Mini (46A)

The video of Nina Simone’s astonishingly raw performance (or should I say, evisceration?) of the song “Feelings” (of all songs!) at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1976, featured in our last Minicab, garnered all sorts of vivid responses from among the Cabineteer community. As for example this note from Ulrich Baer:

Ren—that was the GREATEST performance I have ever seen; it contains so much pain and suffering, her ability to sublimate and transcend that, and then the reminder that her pain has been too high a price to pay for this art; and yet, and yet, against and in spite of the song, she will remember her love. Thank you for sending, Uli Baer

Incidentally, it’s well worth seeking out some of the other videos online from that same concert, including her renditions of “Backlash Blues” and “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free.” For that matter, I was able to track down a link to a video of the entire Montreux 1976 concert over at the Internet Archive, which you too can access here, and really should.

Especially remarkable is how following what might have appeared to be the mike-drop to end all mike-drops at the conclusion of that lacerating “Feelings” rendition (“Goodnight!”), the audience was finally able to draw Simone back on stage (starting at around 56’35”) whereupon she took to talking about Africa and the vivifying effect that living there, in Liberia, for the past several years had had upon her, and she in turn called out to a Senegalese drummer in the audience, who she’d only just met a few days earlier, to come join her on stage, and the coda turns into its own sort of roiling astonishment (Uhli, take note!).

See you next week!