Originally published in The New York Times

Abbey Lincoln, a singer whose dramatic vocal command and tersely poetic songs made her a singular figure in jazz, died on Saturday in Manhattan. She was 80 and lived on the Upper West Side.

Her death was announced by her brother David Wooldridge.

Ms. Lincoln’s career encompassed outspoken civil rights advocacy in the 1960s and fearless introspection in more recent years, and for a time in the 1960s she acted in films, including one with Sidney Poitier.

Long recognized as one of jazz’s most arresting and uncompromising singers, Ms. Lincoln gained similar stature as a songwriter only over the last two decades. Her songs, rich in metaphor and philosophical reflection, provide the substance of “Abbey Sings Abbey,” an album released on Verve in 2007. As a body of work, the songs formed the basis of a three-concert retrospective presented by Jazz at Lincoln Center in 2002.

Her singing style was unique, a combined result of bold projection and expressive restraint. Because of her ability to inhabit the emotional dimensions of a song, she was often likened to Billie Holiday, her chief influence. But Ms. Lincoln had a deeper register and a darker tone, and her way with phrasing was more declarative.

“Her utter individuality and intensely passionate delivery can leave an audience breathless with the tension of real drama,” Peter Watrous wrote in The New York Times in 1989. “A slight, curling phrase is laden with significance, and the tone of her voice can signify hidden welts of emotion.”

She had a profound influence on other jazz vocalists, not only as a singer and composer but also as a role model. “I learned a lot about taking a different path from Abbey,” the singer Cassandra Wilson said. “Investing your lyrics with what your life is about in the moment.”

Ms. Lincoln was born Anna Marie Wooldridge in Chicago on Aug. 6, 1930, the 10th of 12 children, and raised in rural Michigan. In the early 1950s, she headed west in search of a singing career, spending two years as a nightclub attraction in Honolulu, where she met Ms. Holiday and Louis Armstrong. She then moved to Los Angeles, where she encountered the accomplished lyricist Bob Russell.

It was at the suggestion of Mr. Russell, who had become her manager, that she took the name Abbey Lincoln, a symbolic conjoining of Westminster Abbey and Abraham Lincoln. In 1956, she made her first album, “Affair … a Story of a Girl in Love” (Liberty), and appeared in her first film, the Jayne Mansfield vehicle “The Girl Can’t Help It.” Her image in both cases was decidedly glamorous: On the album cover she was depicted in a décolleté gown, and in the movie she sported a dress once worn by Marilyn Monroe.

For her second album, “That’s Him,” released on the Riverside label in 1957, Ms. Lincoln kept the seductive pose but worked convincingly with a modern jazz ensemble that included the tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins and the drummer Max Roach. In short order she came under the influence of Mr. Roach, a bebop pioneer with an ardent interest in progressive causes. As she later recalled, she put the Monroe dress in an incinerator and followed his lead.

The most visible manifestation of their partnership was “We Insist! Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite,” issued on the Candid label in 1960, with Ms. Lincoln belting Oscar Brown Jr.’s lyrics. Now hailed as an early masterwork of the civil rights movement, the album radicalized Ms. Lincoln’s reputation. One movement had her moaning in sorrow, and then hollering and shrieking in anguish — a stark evocation of struggle. A year later, after Ms. Lincoln sang her own lyrics to a song called “Retribution,” her stance prompted one prominent reviewer to deride her in print as a “professional Negro.”

Ms. Lincoln, who married Mr. Roach in 1962, was for a while more active as an actress than a singer. In 1964 she starred with Ivan Dixon in “Nothing but a Man,” a tale of the Deep South in the 1960s, and in 1968 she was the title character opposite Mr. Poitier in the romantic comedy “For Love of Ivy,” playing a white family’s maid. She also acted on television in guest-starring roles in the ’60s and ’70s.

But with the exception of “Straight Ahead” (Candid), on which “Retribution” appeared, she released no albums in the 1960s. And after her divorce from Mr. Roach in 1970, she took an apartment above a garage in Los Angeles and withdrew from the spotlight for a time. She never remarried.

In addition to Mr. Wooldridge, Ms. Lincoln is survived by another brother, Kenneth Wooldridge, and a sister, Juanita Baker.

During a visit to Africa in 1972, Ms. Lincoln received two honorary appellations from political officials: Moseka, in Zaire, and Aminata, in Guinea. (Moseka would occasionally serve as her surname.) She began to consider her calling as a storyteller and focused on writing songs.

Moving back to New York in the 1980s, Ms. Lincoln resumed performing, eventually attracting the attention of Jean-Philippe Allard, a producer and executive with PolyGram France. Ms. Lincoln’s first effort for what is now the Verve Music Group, “The World Is Falling Down” (1990), was a commercial and critical success.

Eight more albums followed in a similar vein, each produced by Mr. Allard and enlisting top-shelf jazz musicians like the tenor saxophonist Stan Getz and the vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson. In addition to elegant originals like “Throw It Away” and “When I’m Called Home,” the albums featured Ms. Lincoln’s striking interpretations of material ranging from songbook standards to Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man.”

For “Abbey Sings Abbey” Ms. Lincoln revisited her own songbook exclusively, performing in an acoustic roots-music setting that emphasized her affinities with singer-songwriters like Mr. Dylan. Overseen by Mr. Allard and the American producer-engineer Jay Newland, the album boiled each song to its essence and found Ms. Lincoln in weathered voice but superlative form.

When the album was released in May 2007, Ms. Lincoln was recovering from open-heart surgery. In her Upper West Side apartment, surrounded by her own paintings and drawings, she reflected on her life, often quoting from her own song lyrics. After she recited a long passage from “The World Is Falling Down,” one of her more prominent later songs, her eyes flashed with pride. “I don’t know why anybody would give that up,” she said. “I wouldn’t. Makes my life worthwhile.”

The Peabody Award–winning radio series, Jazz at Lincoln Center (JALC) Radio with Wendell Pierce, has moved to Monday evening at 10pm, starting August 16. To learn more, click here.

On labor day, Monday, September 6, WNCU will air sets from 2 of the country’s foremost jazz festivals. Starting off with the mother of them all, it will be the 2010 Newport Jazz Festival with selected sets featuring Maria Schneider, Matt Wilson, Conrad Herwig, Amina Figerova, Trio da Paz, J.D. Allen, and more.

We will also air 2 hours of the 2009 Detroit Jazz festival featuring Dave Brubeck, DeeDee Bridgewater, Gerald Wilson Orchestra, Christian McBride, Sean Jones, Geri Allen, Louis Hayes Cannonball Legacy Band, Stefon Harris & Urbanus, and T.S. Monk & The Monk.

Got your HD radio yet? WNCU will launch our 2nd channel, HD2, in September.

HD2 is going to be different. We will broadcast news, talk, and news magazine style radio. We are broadcasting programs with diverse opinions and points of view. Sometimes controversial and off beat, HD2 will have an experimental flavor. We want you to have a chance to see what public radio has to offer and what we feel public radio is all about.

There will be music programs that showcase sounds from around the world and of course there will be our award winning mainstream jazz programming.

A complete listing of WNCU HD2 programs will be available soon.

Relive George Wein’s annual showcase of the best in jazz, including concerts from the Maria Schneider Orchestra, Matt Wilson Quartet, Julian Lage Group, JD Allen and many more. Hear the performances, download sets and see photos from the CareFusion Newport Jazz Festival held in beautiful Newport, R.I. last weekend.

Click here to view photos and hear concerts.

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The annual Bull Durham Blues Festival celebrates Durham’s rich musical heritage as an important center of Carolina or Piedmont blues. Since 1988, St. Joseph’s Historic Foundation, Inc. has presented the festival at the historic Durham Athletic Park, past home of the Durham Bulls Baseball team and site of the hit movie “Bull Durham”. Today, the event has become North Carolina’s largest celebration of the blues attracting fans from over 175 cities throughout North Carolina, 25 different states, and 5 countries in the world.

For 23 years the St. Joseph’s Historic Foundation, Inc. (SJHF) has presented the annual Bull Durham Blues Festival to the joy and pleasure of fans from across the globe here in Durham, NC, the home of the “Piedmont Blues”. Again, on September 10 & 11, 2010, SJHF will present a stellar line up of national, regional and local blues musicians in the usual format, but in a new venue, the new Durham Performing Arts Center (DPAC) and at our home base historic St. Joseph’s Performance Hall at Hayti Heritage Center. The decision to relocate the Festival was a difficult one for the Foundation, but because of production cost implications at our previous site, the current economic climate and opportunities for new and broader partnerships, now was the time.

We recognize that change is difficult and growing pains even more so. This change in venue is an opportunity for the Foundation to revamp the festivals traditional format to encompass other venues within the City of Durham, particularly our vibrant downtown area. In the years to come, we will get back to an outdoor setting, but our plans are to expand the BDBF to multiple locations, both large and small, with shows throughout the week. As we regroup and adapt to current state of affairs, we will take this opportunity to strengthen current partnerships and develop new ones.

You, our fans have trusted us over the years and we say thank you! You have shared with us, the richness of the blues heritage here in Durham for over 22 years. Join with us as we grow, expand and diversify the Bull Durham Blues Festival, something for everyone to enjoy with family, friends and other Blues Lovers!

The festival have showcased some of the finest contemporary blues artist today including Bo Diddley, Taj Mahal, Etta James, Ruth Brown, Aaron Neville and Charles Neville, Bobby Blue Bland, Denise LaSalle, Tyrone Davis, KoKo Taylor, Shemika Copeland, Buddy Guy, Dr. John, Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes, Keb’ Mo, Janiva Mangus, Otis Rush, Hank Crawford, Deborah Coleman, Johnny Clyde Copeland, and Alberta Adams. In addition, the distinctive blues of the Carolinas have featured traditional artists each year such as Moses Rascoe, John D. Holeman, Etta Baker, Lightnin’ Wells, Big Boy Henry, John Jackson, Algia Mae Hinton and harmonicas/guitar duo of Phil Wiggins and the late John Cephas.

See you at the festival…

Visit Official Bull Durham Blues Festival Website