"After Clifford was killed I came back to New York. I had fired everybody, all my managers and agents. Because by now I had a manager who owned 50% of me. I overheard Bob Russell telling some people, 'You don't understand, I own this woman. I fired everybody, agents, manager. I've not had a manager since. I've got business associates. But I manage myself!
     "Influences? Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, I had a lot of influences. But Max Roach was the main influence. I was still wearing that Marilyn Monroe dress, and one time in Canada, Max says, 'Abbey, I don't like that dress.' I thought about it then put it in the incinerator so I wouldn't wear it again.
     "Max and the great musicians he introduced me to knew everything about theory. He introduced me to the cycle of fifths in BI. What I love about this music is the promise of individuality. Variations on a theme. If you can get past the idea of "Jazz", Abbey hisses the word into a chuckle. The dismissal of the term as a loose straightjacket of commerce and cultural patronization, she shares with Roach who told me he got it from Duke Ellington.
     ("Once they start calling the music Jazz", Max said to me a few years ago, "then they can use the term to prop up some things and some people that have nothing to do with this music. All they meant in the beginning was 'nigger music'. We need to speak of the music of Duke Ellington or the music of Thelonius Monk. ")
     About the music, Abbey turns directly philosophical. "It's the human spirit", she calls. That's why those athletes can run like that. That's the only thing. Everyone has it. But in the music, the Africans practiced it. On this level. That's why they came and got us. You think somebody's gonna cross two oceans to get somebody that can't do nothing?
     "But when I met Max I understood what I was involved in. He asked me, ' Abbey, why do you sing everything legato? This is a rhythm music. On the beat!' He'd say that even on the stage.
     "How would I have gotten a chance to meet these great musicians, Rollins, Dorham? Max asked me, 'Abbey would you like to make a jazz album?' I told him I wasn't a jazz singer. He said, ' You're black aren't you?' The Riverside dates came out of that. (Abbey's first sides as leader. That's Him, 57, Riv 250, w/ Dorham, Rollins, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers, Max Roach ; Abbey is Blue, 59, w/Tommy Turrentine, Julian Priester, Stanley Turrentine, Les Spann, Kelly, Cedar Walton, Philip Wright, Bobby Boswell, Sam Jones, Philly Joe Jones, Max Roach, Riv 1153.)
     With another smiling irony, Abbey remembers, "That's when the jealousy started." And to my interrogator's incredulousness, she adds, "Uh huh, people who were jealous. I wasn't supposed to be taken seriously." Her tone stiffening. "I would get this from singers. They'd be talking to Max, "Why don't you let Abbey go make some money, she's not a singer!"

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