This article explores Nina Simone's views on musical perfection and the composer she regarded as its ultimate embodiment: Johann Sebastian Bach. Though Simone herself was often described, notably by Nick Cave, as a "living grievance machine" whose raw, conflicted artistry captured both love and defiance, she held classical music's precision in particularly high esteem, distinguishing genuine mastery from mere imitation.

Simone praised jazz greats including John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington and Art Blakey, but named Bach as unmatched, calling him "technically perfect". In her autobiography, I Put a Spell on You, she wrote that every note in his work connects perfectly to the next, and credited him with inspiring her original ambition to become a concert pianist, saying "Bach made me dedicate my life to music." This influence, the article argues, helped shape her own fusion of jazz and classical traditions, which went on to define her legacy as a voice for her generation.