Trombonist Abe Lincoln existed within a tiny coterie of jazz musicians who were named after U.S. presidents. The other two members of this unofficial executive branch were New Orleans trumpeter Thomas Jefferson and Georgia-born swing/R&B trombonist George Washington. Lincoln was very active as a hot jazz player in New York City during the 1920s, spent years as an anonymous session man in Hollywood, and enjoyed a colorful resurgence of activity on the West Coast during the Dixieland revival of the 1950s. Abram Lincoln was brought into the world on March 29, 1907, in Lancaster, PA, not far from the Dorsey Brothers' hometown of Shenandoah. His father, John Lincoln, a cornetist in the Iroquois and Lancaster City brass bands, started Abe on that instrument when the boy was only five years old. Subjected to uncommonly strict musical training, little Abe began deviating so artfully from the melodic lines of polkas and marches that it soon became clear that he was a born improviser. He earned his first fee by publicly executing a solo on a peck horn, and switched to the slip horn shortly afterwards.

In 1921, 14-year-old Abe performed for the public throughout southern Pennsylvania with a newly formed six-piece jazz band led by his big brother Bud Lincoln. Abe never made it past grade school; when he was 16, with his father's permission, he was hired by bandleader Ace Brigode and soon found himself working in New York City, where he developed his own distinctive sound under the influence of that übermensch of early jazz trombone, Miff Mole. Sometimes Abe would place a sheet of hotel stationary over the bell of the horn and take a solo that sounded as though he were operating a gargantuan kazoo! Abe Lincoln's first issued recordings were waxed in October 1924 with Ace Brigode His Fourteen Virginians. In February 1925 he joined James B. Dimick's Million Dollar Sunny Brook Orchestra and appeared with that organization in Detroit at the Hollywood Theatre and the Arcadia Dance Hall. In October 1925 Abe made records with the Bud Lincoln Jazz Band; Bud was a capable trumpeter comparable to Phil Napoleon, but his career was destined to be cut short by a fatal mishap.

Abe's next important move was to replace Tommy Dorsey as trombonist with New York's most heavily recorded Caucasian hot jazz band, the California Ramblers -- a misleading name as they never performed on the West Coast and most of the original members came from Ohio. The trombonist's stamina and expressive intonation made him an ideal choice for the band's style and rigorous itinerary, which involved weekly recording sessions resulting in records that were issued by multiple labels under a dizzyingly diverse range of pseudonyms. Between 1925 and 1927 Lincoln made scads of recordings with this group while sitting in with other ensembles like Adrian Rollini the Golden Gate Orchestra, the Five Birmingham Babies, the Goofus Five, the University Six, the Varsity Eight, the Little Ramblers, and Ted Wallace His Orchestra, a thinly veiled California Ramblers under the leadership of Ed Kirkeby.

In 1930 Abe revisited Detroit and became a member of the Michigan Theater Orchestra, playing on a recording of Gioacchino Rossini's William Tell Overture that was heard on the original radio series The Lone Ranger. Assembling and leading his own band in 1933, he toured through Pennsylvania, where the Abe Lincoln Orchestra was well received. On resuming professional activity in New York, Lincoln played in bands led by Arthur Lange, Roger Wolfe Kahn, and Paul Whiteman. He joined Ozzie Nelson's orchestra in 1934, and traveled with the unit to Los Angeles, where he would spend many years in Hollywood studio ensembles backing entertainers like Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor, Hoagy Carmichael, Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, Johnny Mercer, Frankie Laine, Jo Stafford, and Ella Mae Morse. His trombone was also audible in several Woody Woodpecker cartoon soundtracks.

During the 1940s Abe Lincoln still blew some honest jazz from time to time, sitting in with trumpeter Wingy Manone and saxophonist Eddie Miller. In October 1953 he jumped on the Dixieland bandwagon, first with the Rampart Street Paraders, then with Bing Crosby and Bob Scobey's Frisco Jazz Band and Ray Anthony's "Big Band Dixieland." As a member of Bobby Hackett's Jazz Band, Lincoln locked horns with Jack Teagarden; when recording with Red Nichols, Abe teamed up with trombonists Moe Schneider and King Jackson. In 1956 he helped put across some of the most authentic Dixieland recordings ever released under the name of Pete Fountain. The following year Abe attracted attention as a member of Pete Kelly's Big Seven (often backing surly narratives by Jack Webb) and signed on with Matty Matlock the Paducah Patrol. Lincoln's lengthy twilit years involved a guest appearance with the Village Stompers; blowouts with cornetist Wild Bill Davison (in 1967 and 1975); a live recording session at the Blue Angel Jazz Club in Pasadena; and a multiple trombone pileup at the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee in 1976. Widely respected and well loved, Abe Lincoln had a lengthy, peaceful retirement and passed away on June 8, 2000, in Van Nuys, CA, at the ripe old age of 93. ~ arwulf arwulf, Rovi