Orpheus,
I like the first link of a younger Nina Simone. Her vocals are ok on that one. Her piano playing was always good..
The second link she is older and it shows. You can hear it in her singing. Piano is still the same.
Throughout her entire career Simone's vocals never really did much for me. Just never grabbed me deep in my gut like Sarah Vaughn or Julie London. I found her voice to be a little to much on the rough side. I'm not sure why but her voice does not make me feel subdued and mystified.
Simone is always listed in the top 10 or 5 on any top 50 female jazz vocalists you can google online and that says a lot about her prowess as a singer.
That being said, everybody hears things differently and on my list she would be higher up.
It’s a voice we’re supposed to hate. Gloomy, uninviting, and hoarse. Overpowering and booming in the low register, rocky and rasping when high. It’s often unstable, fluctuating within both pitch and timbre. Yet it’s these imperfections that make a voice so beautifully
Nina Simone....Prescilla Bajomo.
Entire text here:
http://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/30957/1/nina-simone-s-complex-voice