Abbey Lincoln is the quintessential Renaissance woman of jazz: in addition to being one of the greatest vocalists of her time, she also a remarkable songwriter, painter, poet, actress, and social critic. On March 7, 8 & 9, 2002 in Alice Tully Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center (J@LC) will feature Lincoln in a musical retrospective of her multifaceted career: “Abbey Lincoln: Over the Years - An Anthology of Her Songs.”
Tickets at $50 and $35 are available at the Alice Tully Hall box office, by calling CenterCharge at (212) 721-6500, or via www.jazzatlincolncenter.org. For group sales, please call (212) 258-9817. This concert is sponsored by Cadillac, proud sponsor of Jazz at Lincoln Center.
Lincoln - whose voice The New York Times has hailed as “one of the most finely tuned instruments of honesty in the history of jazz” - will present a unique program on each of the three nights. She will perform more than 35 of her best-known songs, including “Bird Alone,” “A Circle of Love,” “People in Me,” “Who Used to Dance,” “Wholly Earth,” and many others. Each night, she will be accompanied by a different rhythm section and special guests, who will include singer Freddy Cole, saxophonists Joe Lovano and Steve Coleman, and tap dancer Savion Glover (see below for nightly personnel). Lincoln once described her artistic philosophy: “How can you have a career and never say anything? To experience it all and not say a word? You're supposed to stand up and speak your mind in the music. Some people like to hear some reality. I'm not trying to save or fix the world. I'm just singing about my experiences. My songs are observations."
Personnel:
ABBEY LINCOLN, Vocals
plus
Thursday, March 7:
JOE LOVANO, Tenor And Soprano Saxophones
JAMES WEIDMAN, Piano
MICHAEL BOWIE, Bass
JOHN LAMPKIN, Drums
Friday, March 8:
STEVE COLEMAN, Alto Saxophone
RODNEY KENDRICK, Piano
MICHAEL BOWIE, Bass
ALVESTER GARNETT, Drums
Saturday, March 9:
FREDDY COLE, Vocals
SAVION GLOVER, Tap Dancer
STEVE COLEMAN, Alto Saxophone
MARC CARY, Piano
JOHN ORMOND, Bass
JAZ SAWYER, Drums
Abbey Lincoln was born Anna Marie Wooldridge in Chicago in 1930, the tenth of 12 children. She began singing at a young age, won an amateur contest at 19, and began her professional career in California at age 20. Lyricist Bob Russell, who wrote the words for Ellington’s “Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me” and “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore,” became her first manager and gave her the stage name Abbey Lincoln. She made her recording debut in 1955 with Abbey Lincoln's Affair - A Story of a Girl in Love on the Liberty imprint and went on to make several important albums of her own for the Riverside and Candid labels, including Abbey is Blue (1959) and Straight Ahead (1961). She was joined on these recordings by such esteemed musicians as Paul Chambers, Eric Dolphy, Kenny Dorham, Curtis Fuller, Wynton Kelly, Sonny Rollins, Stanley Turrentine, and others. From 1962-70, Lincoln was married to drummer Max Roach, who introduced her to great musicians such as Charles Mingus and Thelonious Monk and featured her on his own albums, including the politically charged We Insist! Freedom Now Suite and Percussion Bittersweet. Lincoln also enjoyed a brief film career in the 1960s (including 1964's Nothing But a Man and 1966's For the Love of Ivy, the latter co-starring Sidney Poitier). In the early 1970s, she also started writing her own songs, beginning with “People in Me” for the 1973 album of the same name. After spending several years out of the limelight in the early 1980s, she recorded two albums of Billie Holiday’s music in 1987, which brought her renewed recognition. Over the last decade, she has further solidified her stature in the jazz world through a number of acclaimed recordings for Verve Records, including You Gotta Pay the Band (1991) Devil's Got Your Tongue (1992), A Turtle’s Dream (1994), Wholly Earth (1999), and Over the Years (2000). In August 1991, she was featured in the Jazz at Lincoln Center production “Two Divas of Jazz - Abbey Lincoln & Shirley Horn.”
For more information please visit www.jazzatlincolncenter.org
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