Search - Abbey Lincoln :: Abbey Sings Billie

Abbey Sings Billie, Vols. 1-2, my review from Barcelona

Jose Maria Domenech Fedi | 06/25/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Abbey Lincoln, a great lady of the vocal Jazz whose heroe and teacher was Billie Holiday and just like her always means the lyrics he sings. This very good record is the joined reedition of the two sessions dedicated to Holiday V1 and V2 and although Abbey really never copycatted her teacher Lady Day, besides having their own style and sound, the intensity, the feeling that she puts in these performances resembles Holiday's way of singing during her last phase. In these Cd' s Lincoln offers fresh rendition of standards, joined by the good Tenor Sax Harold Vick, who passed away a short time after this recording, pianist James Weidman, Tarik Shah playing bass and the well-known drummer Mark Johnson. In CD/1 we find precious themes as, " What to little moonlight can gave", the theme that opens the album, "Strange Fruit", an emotional "I' ll be seeing you", and also "Crazy there I am calls me", a theme perfectly adjusted to Lincoln's voice. There is too the more of 10 min. Mal Waldron's "Soul eyes" in which Vick's sax carries out a fantastic work. In my opinion the CD/2 is better, the expressive powers are expressed more forcefully and it contains dramatics performing moments with a sound more according to the aim, which is homaging the great Billie Holiday, Lady Day. Harold Vick's work on saxo is impressive as it is the work of the rest of the rhythmic section. Abbey shows its great versatility in themes as "Don't explain", "Please don't talk about me (when I' m gone)" ó "Gimme a pigfoot". A good record, in Abbey Lincoln line.

"