2 Jazz Greats Die Over the Weekend
Singer Abbey Lincoln and photographer Herman Leonard, both icons in the world of jazz music, died on August 14, 2010 of unrelated causes. Lincoln was 80, and Leonard was 87.
Abbey Lincoln’s Life and Career
Lincoln, born Anna Marie Wooldridge, was known for her unique phrasing and for writing her own lyrics. Influenced by jazz singer Billie Holiday, Lincoln actually began her career as an actor in the 1950s and ‘60s. She starred in movies such as Nothing but a Man in 1964 and in 1968s For Love of Ivy, alongside Sidney Poitier and Beau Bridges, for which she received a Golden Globe nomination.
Although Lincoln showed-off her vocal talents in the civil rights movie We Insist! – Freedom Now Suite in 1960, she hit her musical stride in the 1980s. Lincoln had over 15 albums, and received a National Endowment for the Arts NEA Jazz Masters Award in 2003.
Over the past few years, Lincoln experienced deteriorating health after a 2007 heart surgery. “The New York Times” reports she died in a Manhattan nursing home.
Herman Leonard’s Life and Career
Known for his historic images of Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Frank Sinatra and more, Herman Leonard began his photography career in the late 1940s. He used glass negatives in his early years, which he enhanced with mercury vapor.
Some of Leonard’s most famous photographs of jazz musicians are those found on album sleeves, and more than 130 of his images are in a permanent collection at the Smithsonian Institution. In 2005, however, Hurricane Katrina damaged over 8,000 of Leonard’s archived prints. Fortunately, the negatives were stored at The Ogden Museum of Southern Art. Following, the hurricane, Leonard moved to Los Angeles. According to a press release on Leonard’s website, he was the first photographer to receive a Grammy Foundation Grant for Preservation and Archiving, which allowed him digitize, catalogue and preserve a collection of nearly 60,000 jazz negatives.
Leonard died at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. His children Valerie, Shana, Michael and David, along with and six grandchildren, survive him.
[Abbey Lincoln photo: Roland Godefroy]
[Herman Leonard photo: Herman Leonard Facebook Fan Page]
Tags: abbey lincoln, celebrity deaths, herman leonard, jazz musician
