In jazz, as in any music, a voice can sometimes stop you in your tracks. Abbey Lincoln, who died this month at 80, possessed that kind of voice: taut and insistent, ablaze with authority. It was a gift, and by no means her only one. Ms. Lincoln was also an arresting physical presence, on screen as onstage, and she proved herself an intuitive...
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...

Abbey Lincoln's great jazz ballad ''Throw It Away'' is the kind of philosophical reflection that invites Method interpretations by singers willing to connect their personal associations with its advice to divest oneself of unnecessary personal baggage. ''You can never lose a thing if it belongs to you,'' concludes the song, whose final image evokes...