CartLEDISI SINGS NINA | SEP 8
Sep 08, 2023
Davies Symphony Hall
The world knows Ledisi as an R&B star who earned a dozen GRAMMY Award nominations before taking home her first trophy in 2021 for her song “Anything For You.” But Bay Area audiences first got to know the New Orleans native during her formative years in Oakland when she was stretching her wings as an ostentatiously gifted jazz singer. For this exclusive night, she returns to SFJAZZ with her sparkling tribute to the High Priestess of Soul, Nina Simone, backed by a full orchestra — a salute captured on her GRAMMY-nominated 2021 Listen Back album Ledisi Sings Nina, recorded in collaboration with the Metropole Orkest, and broadcast as a special on PBS.
Conservatory trained in UC Berkeley’s Young Musician Program, she’s deeply versed in the full continuum of African American music, embodying each idiom so powerfully that Hollywood has often come calling since she made her screen debut as a blues singer in George Clooney’s 2008 comedy Leatherheads. She went on to portray Mahalia Jackson in the Academy Award-winning Selma and Patti LaBelle in the BET series American Soul. She played the gospel legend again in the 2022 Hulu film Remember Me: The Mahalia Jackson Story and Gladys Knight in the Neil Bogart biopic Spinning Gold. It’s no surprise that when Ledisi turned her attention to Nina Simone, she threw herself into the assignment. After performing a 2017 concert of Simone’s music at the Kennedy Center with the National Symphony Orchestra Ledisi wrote and starred in the theatrical production The Legend of Little Girl Blue, which earned glowing reviews during a sold-out three-week run in Los Angeles.
For this exclusive night at Davies, R&B diva Ledisi returns with her sparkling tribute to the High Priestess of Soul, Nina Simone, backed by a full orchestra
Personnel
Ledisi vocals
Orchestra TBA
If Ledisi Sings Nina were a perfume composed of emotion, the top note would be delight, but longing would serve as an unmistakable base note
DownBeat
If Ledisi Sings Nina were a perfume composed of emotion, the top note would be delight, but longing would serve as an unmistakable base note
DownBeat
Personnel
Ledisi vocals
Orchestra TBA
Watch & Listen
Ledisi
Work Song
Ledisi
Feeling Good
Ledisi
Work Song
Ledisi
Feeling Good