Nina

Back in ’87 this was the tune for a Chanel No 5 ad, which in turn led to a rerelease of this tune from 1958 with a videoclip by Aardman animation. I remember there being a whole wave of ad-driven, nostalgia fueled hits for old soul/jazz singers around that time, what with the Levi 501 ads, Jive Bunny and not to mention the similar claymation videoclip for Jackie Wilson’s Reet Petite… But this is the one that stuck with me the most.

And this is what I came across on Youtube while looking for completely different things, a song I’d never heard or seen before, but from the same album as “My Baby Just Cares for Me”, Nina Simone’s debut album. Both songs are jazz standards, originally written for quite different singers, but which of course she completely makes her own. Especially that little bit of Bach iimprovisation on the piano in the middle of “Love Me or Leave Me” left my drymouthed, slackjawed the first time I heard it. I’m normally a rockist at heart and it’s easy to underestimate the power of a song like this, dominated by piano rather than by drums and guitar, but damn this grabs you by the throat.