Lincoln, Abbey (Wooldridge, Anna Marie) (Aminata Moseka)

Lincoln, Abbey (Wooldridge, Anna Marie) (Aminata Moseka), talented jazz singer, composer, actress; b. Chicago, 111., Aug. 6,1930. Lincoln is an intuitive and often compelling singer who is able to overcome her occasional problems with intonation and range. Her delivery makes her one of the most striking singers ever, and few can match her way with lyrics and moods. Her repertory is consistently nontraditional and provocative.

The tenth child in her family, she could pick out melodies on the piano at age five and eventually learned to sing accompaniment to her piano playing. At 19 she got her first job, playing piano and singing in the basement of the A.M.E. Church in Jackson, Mich., for which she was paid five dollars per week. She began singing in dance bands in Chicago, then moved to the West Coast in 1951. In L.A. in 1954, she allowed the producers at the famous Moulin Rouge to change her name. Her first mentor, lyricist Bob Russell, named her Abbey Lincoln and produced her first recording with Benny Carter and Marty Paitch. He was also instrumental in securing Lincoln a featured performance in the Jayne Mansfield movie, The Girl Can’t Help It (1957), where her sultry looks earned her some brief notoriety as the “Black Marilyn Monroe/’ After meeting Max Roach that year, Lincoln changed her image and became a serious singer and political activist. Their “Freedom Now Suite/’ released in 1960, was one of the harbingers of changing sentiments in the Black community. Her album Straight Ahead was criticized by Ira Gitler for being too overtly political, leading to a published panel discussion on jazz and race in Down Beat (March 1962). In her début as a lead actress in the independently produced Nothing But a Man (1964; dir. Michael Roeh-mer), her performance is sensitive and luminous. In 1968 she played the title role with Sidney Poitier in For Love of Ivy.She changed her name to Aminata Moseka in 1975, following a trip to Africa. She had a period of inactivity in the early 1980s, but resurfaced in the 1990s. She writes more of her own songs now, and they are poetic and haunting. In 1992 her band was Rodney Kendrick, Michael Bowie, and Aaron Walker (a fine D.C.-based drummer); by 1996 the only change was Marc Cary replacing Kendrick on piano. She has performed on BET-TV, and is the subject of a documentary, You Gotta Pay the Band.

Discography

Affair.. A Story of a Girl in Love (1956); That’s Him (1957); It’s Magic (1958); Abbey Is Blue (1959); Straight Ahead (1961); People in Me (1973); Golden Lady (1981); Talking to the Sun (1983); A Tribute to Billie Holiday (1987); Abbey Sings Billie, Vol. 1, 2 (1987); World Is Falling Down (1990); You Gotta Pay the Band (1991); Devil’s Got Your Tongue (1992); When There Is Love (1992); A Turtle’s Dream (1994); Who Used to Dance (1996).

—Lewis Porter