Famed Jazz Singer Abbey Lincoln Passes
Abbey Lincoln, a jazz singer who also earned some acclaim as a film actress, died on Saturday, August 14 at her home in New York City. She was 80. Her death was announced by her brother David Wooldridge. Ms. Lincoln had been ailing for some time and had made few if any public appearances in recent years.
Born Anna Marie Wooldridge in Chicago in 1930, Lincoln went through a succession of names, until the late ’50s at the beginning of her show business career, when she got some professional direction from Bob Russell, a song lyricist who became her manager. As she told JT back in 2003, “My manager named me after Abraham Lincoln. He said to me, ‘Since Abraham Lincoln didn’t free the slaves, maybe you can handle it,’ and I’ve been Abbey Lincoln ever since.” The “Abbey” was borrowed from Westminster Abbey.
Nat Hentoff, who worked with LIncoln and Roach on Freedom Now Suite and knew both personally told JT: “Abbey never stopped growing. Knowing and marrying Max Roach taught her, she told me, ‘To be more of myself.’ And as the years went on, having been a fierce opponent of Jim Crow, she later became a universalist. I once did a BBC profile of her and I ended with : ‘Abbey had an integrity that could bite your head off.’ She also, as her singing showed, was an enveloping romantic.”
Ms. Lincoln is survived by two brothers and a sister. The family has requested that donations in Ms. Lincoln’s honor be made to the Jazz Foundation of America. There will be no formal funeral. She will be cremated and the JFA is working to put together the Celebration of Life/Memorial, which they hope will be sometime in mid-September.
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