She Put a Spell on Me

by el Greco


Kim Nalley, jazz vocalist

If the incomparable Kim Nalley wasn’t enough to put a spell on anybody, her set consisting of all Nina Simone material would drive any mortal to heights of ecstasy. The beautiful San Francisco jazz vocalist played to full houses last week at Jazz at Pearl's in North Beach. For our readers who can only navigate starting from bars, that would be right next door to the well known Tosca.

Kim is stunning. Her stage presence is masterful and her voice, commanding. The set of Nina Simone material has been a labor of love for her (I first heard parts of it about a year ago, shortly after Nina died). These familiar Simone standards are given a new life when Kim sings them. Most of these numbers are 30, 40 years old. Kim makes them sound like they were written yesterday.

I caught Kim on the last set of the last night of her Simone performances. Of course, she sings the Simone signature piece I Put A Spell On You. After you hear it, you’ll hypnotically obey anything Kim tells you. I, for one, was ready to fetch her another drink, accompany her back to her dressing room and discuss some art with her (see the previous Critical Cloud article Art is Good for how to entice women with art talk).

The politically charged Mississippi Goddamn was belted out just the way I imagined it would have been when Nina first shocked listeners with it at Carnegie Hall in the 60’s. Kim's rendition of the bittersweet ballad, You Can Have Him, was emotional and riveting. Ninety minutes later, I was still ready to hear more.

This was jazz singing at its best. This little club is what jazz is supposed to be about (other than the annoying smoke-free regulations here in California). Hard liquor. Hot women. Sizzling jazz. Turn off that DVD player and get down to hear Kim Nalley.