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Services set for Simone in two cities

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From Associated Press

Nina Simone’s daughter is planning bicoastal memorial services for the jazz diva, who died in April at age 70.

Simone, a North Carolina native, died at her home in France after a long illness. A funeral was held there.

However, her daughter, Lisa Simone Kelly, has planned two services in the United States: one at Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church on July 26 and another in Culver City on Aug. 9.

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Simone’s deep, raspy, forceful voice made her a unique figure in jazz, and with songs such as “Mississippi Goddam” and “Young, Gifted and Black,” she helped chronicle the civil rights movement.

Kelly, who has starred in Broadway’s “Aida,” has also started the Nina Simone Foundation, a nonprofit designed to preserve and celebrate her mother’s music, social causes and legacy.

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