Nina Simone’s 1959 debut album is framed as a romantic taste of the overflowing New York jazz scene: The cover shows her in Central Park, and the subtitle is “Jazz as Played in an Exclusive Side Street Club.” Never mind the fact that Little Girl Blue was recorded in a studio, and that Simone was still less interested in getting a foothold in that jazz scene than she was in becoming an acclaimed classical pianist (as hard as it might be to imagine now, jazz paid the bills). The intimate trio recordings captured on Little Girl Blue, though, are as cosmopolitan and evocative as promised, transporting listeners—if not to an exclusive side street club, then to the Midtown Bar in Atlantic City, where she’d been playing before this album boosted her prospects. The Little Girl Blue version of “I Loves You, Porgy” became Simone’s first hit single, and ultimately the biggest hit of her career, making it to the upper reaches of Billboard’s Hot 100. The performance introduced listeners to Simone’s singular voice, with the spare accompaniment showing just how deftly she could command a performance with her singing and playing alone. Everything about the band and framework on “I Loves You” was entirely conventional: Here was a “girl singer”—as they were then called—accompanying herself on piano, with a drummer and bass player along for the ride. Yet Simone’s sound is completely distinct, her phrasing and playing toying with the blues and Bach in equal measure. Elsewhere on Little Girl Blue, Simone introduces the a cappella singing that would become a trademark of later recordings on the modern-sounding “Plain Gold Ring,” and unleashes a classical piano solo on “Love Me or Leave Me.” The only anomalous aspect of Little Girl Blue is that, unlike her peers, Simone wasn’t forced to fight through layers of heavy orchestration that were intended to make the record more pop-friendly—and thank goodness for that.