Jazz
In her oblique, singular trajectory across the multiple currents and trends that have fashioned the incredibly rich and complex landscape of contemporary Afro-American music these past fifty years, Abbey Lincoln has gradually established herself in everyone's eye as the great female voice of the post-free era.
On this new album she performs exclusively personal songs, carefully chosen from the nine recordings she made for Verve over the last fifteen years. With a consummate sense of theatre, alternating slow, crepuscular ballads - almost static in their imperceptible unfolding - and songs of timeless sophistication with melodies that are more archaistic, at the frontiers of country-music and folk, she, using little, almost secret Impressionist touches, recapitulates the skillfully "natural" art of phrasing with all its intimate deployments, breaks and suspensions, revealing the magic spells of a rift that can't be confessed while plucking constantly at the strings of emotion with discretion and restraint and distilling, in its slightest inflexions, melancholy that is literally overwhelming.
**
For those who expect their jazz singers to possess a unique timbre, the departure of Shirley Horn passes the "greatest-living-vocalist" crown to the reclusive Abbey Lincoln.
Her voice, while unmistakeably personal, carries the same bluesy texture and total emotional commitment of a royal line going back to Billie Holiday and beyond.
She's also a fine composer whose bittersweet songs have a strong identity.
Warmly backed by a group featuring cellist Dave Eggar, accordionist Gil Goldstein and Larry Campbell on mandolin and various guitars, she sounds contentedly sad.
The first track, Thelonious Monk's "Blue Monk" (lyrics by Lincoln) is the only historically jazz track on this album but it falls in nicely with the folksy country blues exploration of emotion of the rest of the album.
"Should've Been" is real class while "And It's Supposed To Be Love" is a happy-go-Norah Jones time turn.
There's definitely some voodoo mambo going on with "The Music Is The Magic".
The final track, "Being Me" shows an affirmation of an ending which is a bit of a cliché but that's easy enough to overlook bearing in mind the quality of the rest of the CD.
Larry Campbell's guitar work and Gil Goldstein's accordion really set the scene for this uplifting set for the quiet times in your life, but Abbey is the real star here.
**
Abbey Lincoln- Vocals
Larry Campbell- Acoustic guitar, Electric guitar, National guitar, Pedal steel, Mandolin
Scott Colley- Bass
Gil Goldstein- Accordion
Dave Eggar- Cello
Shawn Pelton- Drums
**
01. Blue Monk 5:11
02. Throw It Away 5:17
03. And It's Supposed To Be Love 4:45
04. Should've Been 5:26
05. The World Is Falling Down 3:38
06. Bird Alone 4:53
07. Down Here Below 6:30
08. The Music Is The Magic 3:51
09. Learning How To Listen 4:35
10. The Merry Dancer 6:27
11. Love Has Gone Away 4:38
12. Being Me 3:55
**
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