Abbey Is BluePoll Winners Records****

Abbey Lincoln's death two weeks ago makes this reissue sadly timely; Abbey Is Blueand It's Magicwere two of the three late-1950s albums which announced her arrival in the front rank of jazz singers. If It's Magicincluded more standards - she nailed fine performances of the trite Music, Maestro, Pleaseand Exactly Like Youwith the help of such as Art Farmer, Wynton Kelly and Benny Golson - she also showed where she was heading with jazz pieces such as Little Nilesand Out Of The Past. With Abbey Is Blue- and the wry influence of Billie Holiday absorbed into her own world view - she delivered on that. She brought a proud seriousness to jazz pieces such as the haunting Afro Blue, a bluesy Let Upand declamatory Come Sundayand gave even the unpromising Laugh, Clown, Laugha complex mix of the sardonic and the conspiratorial that marked her as a one-off.