Guide
Heidi Martin doesn’t make a record about Abbey Lincoln. She makes a record that sits inside Abbey Lincoln’s orbit and lets the gravity do the work.
Two Years in the Archive
“Attunement”, out now, comes after two years Martin spent buried in Rutgers University’s archive of Lincoln’s personal journals, part of a 2023-2024 research stint on the singer, writer, actress and civil rights figure who shaped a generation of jazz vocalists without ever chasing the spotlight for it. Martin, a DC based singer with ties to the DC Jazz Festival, didn’t just read the journals and walk away with a tribute album. She went looking for the people who actually lived next to Lincoln’s music. That meant calling bassist Michael Bowie and pianist Marc Cary, both of whom spent over a decade in Lincoln’s band, and asking them to talk.
From Conversation to Collaboration
What started as conversation turned into collaboration. Michael Bowie ended up as musical director on the project, and the two worked through material for months before it became a record. That timeline matters. You can hear a difference between an album written quickly to honour someone and one that was lived with, reworked, argued over in rehearsal rooms until it earned the right to exist next to its source material.
A Band Built on Lineage
The band assembled for “Attunement” reads like a deliberate choice rather than a convenient one. Cary on piano and Bowie on bass bring direct lineage to Lincoln’s actual sound, not an approximation of it. Eric Kennedy holds the drum chair with the kind of restraint that lets space breathe instead of filling it. Elijah Easton’s tenor saxophone and Ethan Bailey Gould’s guitar show up as features rather than fixtures, which keeps the core trio’s chemistry intact while still letting outside voices colour the edges.
Philosophy Over Imitation
What comes through across the record for me isn’t imitation. Martin isn’t doing Lincoln’s phrasing or trying to recreate a vocal identity that belonged to one woman and one woman only. Instead there’s a sense of philosophy passed down, an understanding of how Lincoln used silence, how she let lyrics sit in discomfort rather than resolve too neatly, how her music carried political weight without ever sounding like a lecture. Martin absorbs that approach and builds her own songs from it.
Continuation, Not Tribute
The result feels less like tribute and more like continuation. “Attunement” earns its title. This is a singer who spent two years listening before she ever opened her mouth to write, and you can hear that patience in every choice the band makes around her.
Listen To “Attunement” By Heidi Martin
- Marsha Swanson, “Something Real” – New Music - August 6, 2026
- Julia Thomsen and Raphael Beaudon, “Meet You In Nottinghill” – New Music - August 6, 2026
- Louise Aubrie Returns With “Vienna” - July 3, 2026
