Articles

Fred, Bird, Carmen, Nat, Abbey, New Bu & More

By Marc Cohn

Oh, do we have a show for you. I was reading Will Friedwald's great book, The Great Jazz & Pop Vocal Albums, and discovered a Fred Astaire recording on Verve. We checked it out and spent a couple of very pleasant hours with Fred talking and singing in company of esteemed jazz artists. Our first segment includes a track, as well as other Astaire-associated tunes. Speaking of vocals, it's the Carmen McRae centennial, so we do a compare and contrast ...

A Pride of Jazz Leos - Louis Armstrong, Abbey Lincoln, Dorothy Ashby & More

By Mary Foster Conklin

Lots of Jazz Leos to celebrate on today's broadcast. Included are new releases from Beth Duncan, Regina Carter, Ken Steele plus a special pandemic single from Lauren Lee, with birthday shoutouts to Abbey Lincoln, Louis Armstrong, KJ Denhert, Hendrik Meurkens, Kat Gang, Dorothy Ashby, Kat Edmonson, Roberta Piket, Terri Lyne Carrington and more. Thanks for listening and please support the artists you hear by purchasing their music during this time of lockdown. Playlist Louis Armstrong “Hotter Than That" ...

Fire Music: When Jazz Speaks Out - Part 3

By Ludovico Granvassu

As Martin Luther King put it in the opening address to the 1964 Berlin Jazz Festival, “Jazz speaks for life. The Blues tell the story of life's difficulties, and if you think for a moment, you will realize that they take the hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with some new hope or sense of triumph. This is triumphant music. Modern jazz has continued in this tradition, singing the songs of a more ...

Celebrate songwriters Abbey Lincoln and Bernice Petkere

By Mary Foster Conklin

Many special birthdays in this episode of A Broad Spectrum as we honor the great Abbey Lincoln and remember Bernice Petkere, named the “Queen of Tin Pan Alley" by Irving Berlin for her songs “Close Your Eyes" and “"Lullaby of the Leaves." Playlist Linda Dachtyl “A Late One" from A Late One (Chicken Coop Records) 00:00 Pucci Amand Jhones “Key Largo" from Love, Jhones (Candace Jazz) 04:20 Benny Carter “Blue Moonlight" from Benny Carter Songbook, Vol. 2 ...

Abbey Lincoln: African Queen in a Top Hat

By Joan Gannij

(This interview was conducted in 2002) Abbey Lincoln made a stop in Amsterdam in 1998 for a rare appearance at the 110-year old Concertgebouw, where Sonny Rollins likes to play when he comes to town. The sellout crowd was composed mainly of seemingly staid yet perennially hip “pensionados" (as the Dutch like to refer to their restless retirees) but by the end of the final encore, the historic hall had reached a collective groove and the ghosts ...

Abbey Lincoln: Abbey Sings Abbey

By Suzanne Lorge

At almost 77 years of age Abbey Lincoln has been composing, writing and/or performing for almost sixty years, and Abbey Sings Abbey is a stunning collection of some of the singer's most memorable works. Lincoln is a writer of some depth and the eleven original tunes on this CD offer strong testament to her poetic talents. The lyrics of each song impart a serious message, it's true, but her matter-of-fact acceptance of life's crummier bits leaves one feeling ...

Abbey Lincoln: Abbey Is Blue

By David Rickert

In 1959 Abbey Lincoln was poised to make a truly great album, and Abbey Is Blue was it. Not only was it a breakout performance for Lincoln, who delivered on the promise she had already shown, it was also a breakthrough performance in jazz singing.

With the civil rights movement looming over the horizon, no longer did singers need to stick with standards and Tin Pan Alley tunes and could truly sing about subjects that mattered to them. ...