Christmas Spirit Quote by Abbey Lincoln

Abbey Lincoln isn’t confessing a crush here so much as staking a claim. “More than any other person other than myself on the stage” lands like a deliberate provocation: devotion braided with ego, reverence that refuses to turn into self-erasure. The quick “Yeah, I do” seals it with a performer’s timing, the kind of tag line that dares you to challenge her.

The intent is double-edged. On one side, it’s an unmistakable bow to Billie Holiday as a singular artistic force - a vocalist who turned phrasing into autobiography and pain into style without polishing the mess away. On the other, Lincoln draws a hard boundary around her own worth. She’s not joining the long line of singers who genuflect before Holiday as if greatness must be borrowed. She’s saying: I can love a legend fiercely and still center myself.

The subtext sits in what “on the stage” implies. This isn’t private sentimentality; it’s professional, public, competitive love. Jazz is full of myth-making, and Holiday’s myth can swallow other women whole: the tragic genius, the broken voice, the suffering as authenticity. Lincoln, who spent her career refusing easy narratives about Black womanhood and artistry, praises Holiday while quietly rejecting martyrdom as a job requirement.

Context matters: Lincoln came up in an era when women vocalists were treated as ornaments or vessels for male bandleaders’ prestige. Calling Holiday her favorite “other than myself” is a refusal to be grateful for crumbs. It’s admiration with backbone - a lineage, not a pedestal.