[Dixielandjazz] Abbey Lincoln

[Steve Barbone]

Jazz singer Abbey Lincoln said: "I had a chance to be myself, and I was." A
stunning achievement for a musicians in a world of copy cats.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone 


Abbey Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation

NY TIMES - By NATE CHINEN - May 20, 2007

"I HAD a chance to be myself, and I was,² Abbey Lincoln said one recent
afternoon, in a corner parlor of her spacious but unassuming ground-floor
apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. This 76-year-old jazz legend
was summing up her new album, ³Abbey Sings Abbey² (Verve), but she could
have been describing the central theme of her long and colorful career. On
the walls around her were dozens of artifacts ‹ photographs of her with jazz
greats, plaques from politicians and family portraits she painted ‹
attesting to the fullness of that story. Dominating the room was a piano,
the instrument with which she wrote many of her symbolically charged and
self-reflective songs.

Ms. Lincoln was on the mend from recent open-heart surgery, which might
nudge anyone toward rumination. But sitting on a couch in loose clothing,
she was as matter-of-fact about her health as she is about her work. Long
recognized as one of jazz¹s most arresting and uncompromising singers, she
has more recently been celebrated as a gifted lyricist and composer. She is
the rare jazz singer who writes her own songs, and the rare jazz songwriter
whose music conveys the lessons of her life, like, ³You can never lose a
thing if it belongs to you.²

³Abbey Sings Abbey,² which is out on Tuesday, captures the depth of her art
with majestic serenity and bittersweet clarity. As the title suggests, it
looks back on her original songs, the first time Ms. Lincoln has dedicated a
full album to her own work. Another first: It surrounds her richly textured
voice with acoustic and pedal steel guitars, accordion and mandolin, in an
American roots-music style. ³For some reason,² she said, ³it¹s better than
anything I¹ve done before.²

And Ms. Lincoln ‹ who was born Anna Marie Wooldridge, the 10th of 12
children ‹ has done quite a lot in her five-decade-plus career. Her songs
are almost certainly her proudest achievement, an impression she reinforces
by quoting them liberally, and commandingly, in conversation. ³I¹m a
philosopher, you know,² she said, several minutes into an interview marked
at first by wariness, then candor and humor. She frequently reached back
into her history, reminiscing even about the things she¹s glad to have left
behind.

Fifty years ago Ms. Lincoln was on track to become a film and cabaret siren,
appearing in the Jayne Mansfield movie ³The Girl Can¹t Help It,² and on the
cover of her 1956 debut, ³Affair ... Story of a Girl in Love,² in a
décolleté dress and a come-hither pose. She had already spent two years in
Honolulu as a supper-club attraction. ³I was a glamour queen there too,² she
said, smiling faintly. ³I met Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday. I¹d do my
show and run to see Billie. She¹d stand on the stage and never move, except
for her eyes.² 

Ms. Lincoln would eventually be hailed as a successor to Holiday, for her
interpretive prowess as well as a slight resemblance between their grainy
yet supple vocal timbres. But that accolade was well beyond the horizon when
she left Hawaii for Los Angeles, where she met the lyricist Bob Russell, who
became her manager. ³One time he told me, ŒSince Abraham Lincoln didn¹t free
the slaves, maybe you could handle it,¹ ² she recalled with a laugh. ³He
named me Abbey Lincoln.²

Emancipation became a genuine preoccupation for Ms. Lincoln after she met
Max Roach, the maverick bebop drummer she credits with ³helping me find
myself²; they married in 1962. In New York Mr. Roach brought her into his
world of artistic experimentation and political engagement. Ms. Lincoln cut
herself loose from her satiny image. She¹s fond of recalling the emblematic
moment when she burned the dress she sported in ³The Girl Can¹t Help It,²
which had previously been worn by Marilyn Monroe. By 1960 she was vocalizing
with a raw, spine-tingling power in Mr. Roach¹s ³We Insist! Freedom Now
Suite,² a momentous civil-rights anthem.

In 1961 Ms. Lincoln made some early forays into lyric writing on an album
called ³Straight Ahead² (Candid) that sparked a public discussion about
racial prejudice in jazz, after one reviewer derided Ms. Lincoln as a
³professional Negro.² She seems to view those tensions now in an almost
clinical light. ³People remember you for what you stood for,² she said
simply. ³And if you didn¹t stand for anything, they remember that too.²

One song Ms. Lincoln versified on ³Straight Ahead² was ³Blue Monk,² by the
pianist Thelonious Monk, who stopped by the recording studio to bestow his
blessing. ³He whispered in my ear just as he was leaving, ŒDon¹t be so
perfect,¹ ² she said. That bit of advice has stayed with her over the years.
³Blue Monk² opens the new album.

It wasn¹t until her 40s that Ms. Lincoln began to come into her own as a
composer. After her divorce from Mr. Roach in 1970, she withdrew from the
spotlight, taking an apartment above a garage in Los Angeles. She released
an album after a revelatory trip to Africa in 1972, but otherwise directed
most of her energies inward. Her songs reflected that spirit of
introspection. ³I got some people in me,² she wrote.

Moving back to New York in the 1980s she resumed performing, eventually
attracting the attention of Jean-Philippe Allard, a producer and executive
with Polygram France. Ms. Lincoln¹s first effort for what is now the Verve
Music Group, ³The World Is Falling Down² in 1990, was a commercial and
critical success and eight more albums followed, each involving elite jazz
musicians and refined jazz arrangements.

The new album purposefully departs from that formula. Mr. Allard, speaking
from Paris, said that he and Jay Newland, the engineer on almost all of
those Verve releases, had long shared a quiet conviction. ³Abbey¹s songs
have this folk element that is not well represented in a jazz context
sometimes,² he said.

Mr. Newland, who produced ³Abbey Sings Abbey² with Mr. Allard, traces the
concept for the album back at least a decade, to a recording Ms. Lincoln
made of Bob Dylan¹s ³Mr. Tambourine Man.² She¹s a singer-songwriter too, Mr.
Newland recalled thinking at the time.

The idea was rekindled last year, when the producers worked together on an
album by the Afro-European pop singer Ayo. Among the songs they recorded was
Ms. Lincoln¹s ³And It¹s Supposed to Be Love,² in a new arrangement driven by
the guitarist (and as it happens, former Dylan sideman) Larry Campbell. Mr.
Campbell was tasked with paring down a number of Ms. Lincoln¹s other songs,
in preparation for a recording session.

³I was a little skeptical,² Mr. Campbell said by cellphone, driving near
Nashville. ³How do you take all these really sophisticated harmonic
structures and break them down to virtually folk songs?²

It turned out to be easy once he was in the studio with the versatile jazz
bassist Scott Colley and the prolific rock drummer Shawn Pelton. Many of Ms.
Lincoln¹s songs employ a verse-chorus structure more in line with folk songs
than jazz standards; some, like ³The Music Is the Magic,² resemble nursery
rhymes. Though the three musicians had never worked together before, they
quickly devised a gently twangy atmosphere for the songs. Later the arranger
Gil Goldstein fleshed out some tracks, adding his own deft accordion lines,
along with parts for a cellist, Dave Eggar.

Ms. Lincoln exudes a powerful authority throughout the album, whether
striking a quietly wistful note on ³Should¹ve Been² or appealing to a
distant creator in ³Down Here Below.² Her flickering alto sounds ratified by
age; her phrasing is subtle and sure.

³I¹ve got about 15 years on some of the songs, so it¹s supposed to be a
little different,² she said. ³If I was imitating myself, that would be
pitiful.²

Many more singers are likely to mine Ms. Lincoln¹s songs, given that ³Abbey
Sings Abbey² presents them so clearly, and with so few adornments. Earlier
this year the jazz vocalist Kendra Shank released ³A Spirit Free: Abbey
Lincoln Songbook² (Challenge). Her advice to any artist would be ³to sing
your own song,² Ms. Lincoln said. ³Don¹t look to me, look to yourself.²
Still, she noted with evident satisfaction a report she had received: a
couple of nights earlier, a singer in a club had been pressured by an
audience member into singing ³Throw It Away,² one of her signature songs.

The singer was Cassandra Wilson, who recorded the song on a recent album,
and who has often worked with the rootsy instrumentation now being used by
Ms. Lincoln. ³I learned a lot about taking a different path from Abbey,² Ms.
Wilson said. ³Investing your lyrics with what your life is about in the
moment.² 

That includes the tougher moments, of which Ms. Lincoln has lately had a
few. Sitting on her couch, surrounded by the totems of her life, she
repeatedly admitted to a lingering fatigue. ³I didn¹t come here to stay
forever, I know that,² she said. ³So if they want to bring me home, I¹ll be
glad to go. It¹s easy for me to say it, but I mean it too.² She has vague
plans to bequeath her apartment to the community as an arts center: Moseka
House, after the name she was given 35 years ago by an official in Zaire.

Of course her greatest legacy will be her music, which she isn¹t ready to
relinquish. ³They¹re my songs, and I sang ¹em and I¹ll sing ¹em,² she said.
³It¹s not the last time I¹ll sing ¹em, either.² In August she will headline
both days of the 15th Annual Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, which takes place
in Harlem and the East Village.

³All along the way there were things to do/always some other someone I could
be,² Ms. Lincoln said, citing lines from ³Being Me,² which closes the album
with a rumination on her lifelong search for an honest self. ³Abbey Sings
Abbey² is the manifestation of that search, a study in gravity and wisdom
that could only have come, one suspects, at this point in her career.

³I should be excellent by now,² Ms. Lincoln said. ³Otherwise, when is it
going to be?² She drew herself up into a regal posture, grinning
mischievously. ³I¹m baaaaaad.²