Earth tones

Close encounters with Abbey Lincoln

by Jim Macnie

Over the holidays, while I was exchanging one of those currently ubiquitous fleece pullovers, my wife and I wandered into the stereo section of a suburban department store to try out one of those currently ubiquitous mini-systems. The teen in charge was without a test disc, so I popped in the advance of Abbey Lincoln's new Wholly Earth (Verve) and bumped it up to track seven.

"I would while away the hours/Conferring with the flowers/Consulting with the rain," the singer sighed for her new-found Middle America audience. Two shoppers stopped immediately and commented on the voice. Three more halted when Lincoln promised to "unravel every riddle for every individil in trouble or in pain." By the time she was done with the Scarecrow's tender plaint, there were nine consumers forsaking Dockers and espresso makers to play jukebox jury. The final consensus was decidedly pro-Abbey, though not one listener had ever heard of the vocalist. The most garrulous of the crew was actually pissed when he learned that the CD wasn't yet available (it comes out a week from Tuesday, January 26).

The 68-year-old Lincoln, who comes to Scullers next weekend for a three-night stand, cackles when I tell her of this incident. "But," she adds quickly, "it doesn't really surprise me. We live through music, and it usually has an impact. The ability to captivate is a spiritual thing, and when you get a brilliant lyric like that, people react."

In what seems an impossible scenario, Lincoln had never heard "If I Only Had a Brain" until just recently, when she came across the sheet music in a bound volume of old tunes. And yeah, that means this one-time film actress -- her last role was playing a tough-love matriarch in Spike Lee's Mo' Better Blues -- has never seen The Wizard of Oz.

Suffice to say Lincoln concentrates on other things. The last 10 years have been the most consistently productive of her recording career -- Wholly Earth is the seventh disc she's made for Verve in that period. Although a commanding singer from the get-go -- her work stretches back to '56 with the release of the oeuvre d'amour Abbey Lincoln's Affair . . . A Story of a Girl in Love (Liberty) -- each new outing finds her a bit more eloquent, a bit more authoritative. Like its predecessors, Wholly Earth creates a place where rumination and melancholy generate a forlorn sort of grandeur. Emotional vehemence has been one of Lincoln's hallmarks for decades now; this new album reminds us that she can make a six-minute ballad seem epic. "It's so dramatic," mumbled a member of that department-store audience before drifting away toward housewares.

Those who have caught one of Lincoln's recent shows will surely subscribe to that notion as well. Her stage work can be enthralling. Like every vocalist who came up in the '50s, she has sung her share of standards -- everything from "Love Walked In" under the baton of Benny Carter to "The Jitterbug Waltz" in tandem with Hank Jones. But common jazz tunes don't best display her depth, and in some cases they inhibit her singularity. With fierce opinions about the state of the world today, Lincoln has the most impact interpreting her own material, which is occasionally distressing and invariably poetic. Cassandra Wilson has said that "Abbey sings life."

"Anybody worth their salt in this music is a social observer," offers Lincoln. "Billie Holiday wrote, `God bless the child that's got its own.' Duke Ellington wrote, `All the hounds have been killed, ain't you thrilled, jump for joy.' I'm a woman of 68 years: I'm supposed to have something to say. I'm experienced. If I see a hole somewhere, I say so. This is what an artist does."

Rather than probing knots in the social fabric, as she's previously done, Lincoln uses the new album to examine the great beyond. Spirituality is a common frame of reference for the singer, and on the disc she queries a newborn on life's grand scheme and gives Lionel Hampton's "Midnight Sun" an existential edginess, adducing love as the key to transcendence.

Pianist Marc Cary, drummer Alvester Garnett, and vibraphone virtuoso Bobby Hutcherson help shape the moods. Joined by John Ormond's bass, they create a mesmerizing air on the disc's centerpiece, "Another World." The tune's theme echoes the six-note salutation of the alien craft in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Lincoln may be fuzzy about Oz, but she's got the cosmos covered.

"I got some nice stuff from Marc and Bob on that," she says proudly. "Listening to them at one point, I thought, `This is the way the ship could have answered.' Mr. Spielberg knows that music is more than entertainment. It's a technology -- push the buttons on the phone and it's a chord. I believe music can relieve us of anxiety and worry. I don't know how anybody could stand it here if they didn't sing and dance."

Abbey Lincoln performs two sets nightly at Scullers Jazz Club, in the DoubleTree Guest Suites Hotel, Boston, on January 21, 22, and 23. Call (617) 562-4111 for information, 331-2211 for tickets.