Abbey Lincoln
A Turtle's Dream

THE REVIEW

Some might remember her screaming, in the wonderful Freedom Suite Now, We Insist! recently dusted off on these pages. As for me, I owe her an unpayable debt for introducing a wild and desperate solo by my little friend Eric Dolphy in Mendacity, always under the signature of her ex-husband Max Roach. Some might also remember her as an actress, in Mo' Better Blues, a Spike Lee joint (she's the mother of the protagonist Denzel Washington). Some might not even know who she was.

Her name was Abbey Lincoln. 1930 - 2010. She was a singer, an actress, a songwriter. An activist, in the Movement, with a capital M from those years. She married Max Roach, divorced him in 1970.

She disappears. For twenty years. No one knows, no one asks where she's been. She returns, in 1990. And Verve offers her a ten-record contract. Verve, ten records, she's sixty. She makes the ten records.

One, with Stan Getz, cannot be forgotten for a fabulous Bird Alone, or for my beloved Brother Can You Spare a Dime.

This is a record from 1994. Her own stuff. A beautiful song, like Throw It Away, what can I tell you.

I don't know much about female voices. Well, I don't understand much in general about almost everything, but even less about female voices. She is not an acrobat. Doesn't seem to have a wide range. Not one of those unforgettable timbres. But the air of someone who has lived. And survived. No, lived. And remained beautiful. Definitely beautiful. And is still the same person who thirty years earlier was screaming anger, rebellion. To remain the same, completely changing. With that air of saying: friend, I know what life is. Well, something like that. Which does good.

And then, don't ask me why, for some time now when I hear something new, there's track number four. Four isn’t even a number I particularly like. Track number four, if you feel like it, is this one here.

Her name is Abbey Lincoln. Maybe, make a note, write it down. And next to it, if you want, a little heart, or a clenched fist, or whatever you like. What I put next to it, I won’t tell you.