Adelaide Cabaret Festival<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Banquet Room<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Aided and abetted by an excellent band, Ursula Yovich not only showcases the work of a musical legend, she artfully brings the lessons of the songs closer to home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Written by Murray Bramwell<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The more time passes, the more amazing is Nina Simone. Her musical gifts as both composer and performer are extraordinary and unique. Her legacy has been clouded in recent times with the preoccupation with the mental distress in her later years. The Netflix documentary What Happened, Miss<\/em> Simone ?<\/em> may have graphically reported on her decline, but it could not conceal her genius and commanding presence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1970, Nina Simone confided to a New York audience how tiring performing had become – and that she hoped that night\u2019s live recording (released as Black Gold<\/em>) would be something people could still listen to when she was gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And what remarkable treasures those albums now are, especially the concerts when her precision and gift for improvising across genres and styles is so apparent. Apart from her own brilliant compositions, there are the covers \u2013 Broadway tunes, spirituals, blues standards, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, George Harrison and Burt Bacharach songs\u2013 all transmuted into Nina Simone originals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In her captivating Cabaret Festival tribute, Ursula Yovich fondly recalls, as a youngster in Darwin, watching Simone video clips on Rage<\/em>. That admiration has grown into a profound sense of kinship, an affiliation with this singer, and her willingness to bear witness. \u201cIt is the artists\u2019 duty ,\u201d says Yovich, \u201cto reflect the times.\u201d And she applauds Nina Simone as an artist, an activist, and \u201cThe High Priestess of Soul\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n After an extended and outstanding career as both actor and singer, Yovich has in some ways echoed Simone\u2019s own. Identified for exceptional talent she enrolled in theatre and music classes when very young. And her impressive bio includes more than 50 stage productions, including her own compositions, one person shows, high profile Australian films and TV, and multiple Helpmann and other prestigious awards- including, as of last Thursday night the Adelaide Gala Cabaret Icon award.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As soon as Ursula Yovich and her terrific four piece band take to the stage, the packed house in the Banquet Room is ready to roll. The show opens with \u2018Sinnerman\u2019, the diminutive Yovich filling the air with her powerful contralto, \u2018Sinnerman where are you going to run to ?\u2019 She doesn\u2019t mimic Simone but is clearly a match for the repertoire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her vocal is urgent and in lock-step with the roiling piano and the snap sharp snare drum. The repetitions -call and response of \u201cPower\u201d- set a revival mood, but also syncopated handclapping and piano rhythms remind us that Nina Simone hearkened to such jazz stylings as Dave Brubeck\u2019s \u2018Unsquare Dance\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In immediate contrast comes \u2018Black is the Colour of My True Love\u2019s Hair\u2019, Simone\u2019s variation on the widely revived Scottish ballad. With only piano accompaniment from Daniel Pilner, Yovich effortlessly captures the tenderness of the Highland original – but also the celebration of Black identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the first of a number personal commentaries on the material chosen, she recalls first hearing the song and feeling she could at last cast off the crushing connotations of Black as \u201cugly and evil and dark.\u201d It remains quietly implicit in this version, however, unlike the variation Nina Simone also recorded which proudly asserted- \u201cBlack is her body\/ so firm and so bold\/ Black is beauty\/Her soul is gold.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The pairing of Jacques Brel\u2019s \u2018Ne Me Quitte Pas\u2019 with Gershwin\u2019s \u2018I Loves You Porgy\u2019 which follows is not so much a mash-up as a sublime pairing of two compositions brought delectably to life. Ursula Yovich\u2019s effortlessly phrased vocal captures not only the pensive Brel, but the gently mournful lilt and swing of Gershwin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An almost reggae beat for \u2018Don\u2019t Let Me be Misunderstood\u2019 brings a tempo change and the band get into stride. Musical director and bass player Adam Ventoura adds chorus vocals, and guitarist Daniel March contributes tasty flourishes also. The song\u2019s title leads Yovich to reflect on the alienation and indifference of misunderstanding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Throughout the performance, in the manner of Nina Simone, she reflects on the chaos and cruelty of the larger world and also within our own borders. By saying the quiet stuff out loud, she bears witness to racial injustices – not with generalities, but the names of First Nations men and women who have suffered and died with no consequence for the perpetrators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This leads into the most confronting song in the setlist. \u2018Strange Fruit\u2019 a graphic depiction of two racist lynchings (written by Abel Meeropol and made famous by Billie Holliday and Nina Simone) opens with slow-march dirge chords on piano – and Ursula Yovich\u2019s penetrating vocal. \u201cStrange fruit hanging from the poplar trees\/ Pastoral scenes from the gallant South.\u201d It is, and should be, a grim pause in the proceedings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lovich and her excellent band then swing into Simone\u2019s portraits of discrimination and defiance \u2018Four Women\u2019 and the upbeat hymn from the hippie musical, Hair<\/em> \u2018Ain\u2019t Got No\/I Got Life\u2019 followed by Nina Simone\u2019s most celebrated anthem (co-written by Weldon Irvine) \u2018To be Young, Gifted and Black\u2019, which took its title from a phrase coined by the African American playwright, Lorraine Hansberry. It could also describe the accomplishments of Ursula Yovich herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Stars\u2019- Janis Ian\u2019s musing on celebrity and self-worth, has the line \u201cTruth tellers don\u2019t fade\u201d leading Yovich to celebrate and lament the tribulations of people such as Nelson Mandela and Charlie Perkins, among others. This segues into a concern for artists in a hostile world, and, in her own case as an actor, immersed in performances depicting and protesting dire human predicaments that are no more resolved now than ever. \u201cTruth doesn\u2019t protect you,\u201c she observes. \u201cIt can isolate you instead.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Never letting the occasion to become fretful, however, Ursula Yovich and the band turn to another of Nina Simone\u2019s rallying calls for revolution \u2013 \u2018Everything Must Change\u2019 \u2013\u201cnothing remains the same\u201d. It is musically exhilarating, the players all lifting Yovich\u2019s soaring vocal \u2013 Daniel Pilner on the ivories, Daniel March turning out tasty guitar riffs, Fabian Hevia on drums, closely matching Adam Ventoura on bass. These players can turn on a dime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The final number is Nina Simone\u2019s open question, about liberty and freedom from persecution, \u2018I Wish I Knew How it Feels to be Free.\u2019 For many of us in the audience it is probably not a statement we properly comprehend. Certainly not in the way that Ursula Yovich does. It has been her gift to the festival not only to engage generously, but to memorably conjure up the amazing music of a pioneer whose day is still ahead of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n