RIP Abbey Lincoln

Maybe not a giant, but the jazz world lost a pretty large figure last month in the passing of Abbey Lincoln.  Born Anna Marie Woolridge in Chicago in 1930 and reared in rural Michigan,  Anna Marie moved to L.A. to begin her professional career as a lounge singer.  Around 1955 she changed her name to Abbey Lincoln, and during that year she released her debut album, “Abbey Lincoln's Affair. A Story of a Girl in Love.”  Along with Julie London, featured previously, in this blog, Lincoln appeared in the Jayne Mansfield/rock 'n roll vehicle, The Girl Can't Help It. Unlike Julie London, whose style didn't change much over the course of her recording career, Abbey Lincoln's music varied greatly through the years.

The video below is from The Girl Can't Help It, and features Abbey in a gown previously worn by Marilyn Monroe.



Later in the 1950s Lincoln  began to collaborate with legendary drummer Max Roach (whom she later married) and moved in a much "jazzier" direction.  One of her important albums of this period was Abbey is Blue, which featured, in addition to Roach, other prominent jazz musicians of the time, including Stanley Turrentine, Wynton Kelly, and Philly Joe Jones.  Although the album included some "standards," e.g., "Lost in the Stars" (Kurt Weill & Maxwell Anderson) & "Come Sunday," (Duke Ellington) this is not a pop album.  

Abbey singing "Come Sunday" from Abbey is Blue:






In 1960 Lincoln and Roach collaborated the groundbreaking jazz and civil rights album, “We Insist! Freedom Now Suite”, but during the rest of that decade she concentrated on a semi-successful acting career.  After divorcing Roach in 1970, she spent most of the '70's honing her songwriting skills and did not release another album in the U.S. until 1979's People in Me."  Her profile remained low during the 1980s until she signed with Verve in the early 1990s, where she remained for the rest of her recording career.  Her last album for Verve, Abbey Sings Abbey, released in 2007, was a retrospective and reworking of some of her earlier recordings.


The next two videos are from Abbey's Verve period. The first is her composition, "Down Here Below," from A Turtle's Dream, and features Kenny Barron on piano and Charlie Haden on bass subtly supplemented by strings.  The second video is "Windmills of your Mind" from her next to last album, Over the Years, which the Amazon reviewer suggested might have been the best album of her career.  This song features her rhythm section: Brandon McCune (p), John Ormond (b), and Jaz Sawyer (d) plus Joe Lovano on tenor.