At The Village Gate Nina Simone

In this, Nina Simone's fifth album on Colpix, there is a natural and inevitable chemistry working...the elements are the inimitable singer herself and the famed lower Manhattan cafe The Village Gate. Nina called it her "home club," and certainly, as this beloved 1961 recording testifies, she wears it as comfortable as old clothing. Along with her expert and familiar trio composed of guitarist Al Shackman, drummer Bobby Hamilton and bassist Chris White, Simone fashions amazingly versatile and stirring performances throughout. She ranges with ease from Broadway ("Just In Time" from Bells Are Ringing) to folk music (the famous and haunting "House of the Rising Sun") to a standard ("Bye Bye Blackbird"), which receives as unique and definitive a treatment as this old 1920s song has ever had. All in all, At The Village Gate is an unequivocal triumph for the artist who was aptly tabbed "one of the great singing talents of our time..."