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To most white people, jazz means black and jazz means dirt, and that's not what I play. I play black classical music.

Nina Simone

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Nina Simone
Age: 75 †
Born: 1933
Born: February 21
Died: 2008
Died: April 21
Composer
Jazz Pianist
Recording Artist
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Tryon
North Carolina
Eunice Kathleen Waymon
High Priestess of Soul
People
Dirt
Jazz
White
Means
Black
Music
Play
Mean
Classical

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My job is not done. I address my songs now to the third world. I am popular all over Asia and Africa and the Middle East, not to speak of South Africa, where I'm trying to go to see Nelson Mandela.
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You can't help it. An artist's duty, as far as I'm concerned, is to reflect the times.
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What is love but a prelude to sorrow...with heartache ahead for your goal.
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It's a good time for black people to be alive.
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You have to learn to get up from the table when love is not being served.
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I look forward to doing my own show, not someone else's. That's always been my dream.
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To be young, gifted and black!
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There are all kinds of things that can be done. You can change rhythms, you can change chords, you can change whole concepts. But it will only work, on a record or in a performance, if you can make the people buy it.
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I do love to sing Jacques Brel songs, intensely. I get terribly excited, just by reading a couple of lines in any one of his songs.
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You can't be different if you look at it. Being gifted is different. I had that in my piano playing. I'm very thankful for that. I'm very aware of that. The style and what I fed is just me. I never worked at it. It just happened.
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Jazz is not just music, it's a way of life, it's a way of being, a way of thinking.
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I don't like drug addicts and she sounds like a cat.
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Birds flying high you know how I feel Sun in the sky you know how I feel Breeze driftin' on by you know how I feel And this old world is a new world And a bold world For me And I'm feeling good I'm feeling good
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I had heard blues and jazz all my life but I was never aware that it was associated with nightclubs and drinking.
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I would like a man now who is rich, and who can give me a boat - a sailboat. I want to own it and let him pay for it. My first love is the sea and water, not music. Music is second.
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When I choose material for an album all these songs I grew up with pour into my head.
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Since I was three I've been playing the piano. I've been onstage.
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I believe the time will come when the whole definition of pop music will change. It will get to the point where a song will not be a good song until it has a high level of creativity in writing and performance. In other words, in order to be popular, songs will have to meet these high standards.
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The Beatles are lucky, very lucky. But what has happened to them has nothing to do with them, in a sense. They came along at the right time. Attention was focused on them. They've had the chance to grow in almost any direction they wanted. Very lucky. They are not exceptionally talented.
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Anything human can be felt through music, which means that there is no limit to the creating that can be done with music. You can take the same phrase from any song and cut it up so many different ways - it's infinite. It's like God... you know?
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