In Memoriam—I Remember Dr. W. James “Jimmie” Abbington, Organist, Music Director, Administrator, Historian, Mentor, Friend

About the Author—Professor Ellis Washington, J.D.—I went to Harvard Law School for 1 year (1988-89) with future POTUS Barack Hussein Obama, (b. 08/04/1961 – d. 09/29/2019),  who was a secret descendant of the Rothschild Banking Cartel Family and a blood grandson of the  German NAZI dictator, Adolf HITLER! – who was also a Rothschild – but I took the opposite path in Life—New World Order, Communism, Treason, Pedophilia and Satanic Ritual Abuse vs. Christianity, Conservatism, Protecting the Children & TRUMPism. I repeatedly refused to take the “Satan OATH” which is why I’ve been blacklisted since 1989 – for over 36 years—for my entire legal and academic career, yet I Fight on! Why? To avenge Harvard University’s original 1692 motto—Veritas pro Christo et Ecclesia  {= Truth for Christ and the Church}.  How do We the People escape the 150-year Rothschild Chattel Slavery systems (e.g., Birth certificates [= Birth Bond Fraud], Death certificates, Social Security numbers bought, sold and trading people’s identities like animals on Wall Street) and  Rothschild Debt Slavery systems (e.g., IRS, Income Taxes, Death Taxes, Fiat or Counterfeit currency not based on Gold or Silver, but based on NOTHING!  Cui bono?– Who benefits? Why are all national currencies of the world promiscuously printed at will by the Rothschild Central Bankers? Is it to fund perpetual False Flag Wars like — America vs. New World Order, America vs. Venezuela, Israel vs. Gaza, Syria, Iran, Yemen & Lebanon, Russia vs. Ukraine, Taiwan vs. China, Rwanda vs. The Congo, Cambodia vs. Thailand,  Armenia vs. Azerbaijan, Civil war in France, in Yemen, in Laos, in Indonesia, and existential battles all over the world,  while keeping the entire world enslaved inside an existential –Birth-School-Labor-Taxes-Debts-Retirement-Death cycle of the Rothschild Khazarian Mafia Matrix (1871-2021)? Further answers can be learned by reading, studying and sharing the Truth of my Critical Thinking blog that on 1 Aug. 2025) surpassed 26 million views! See, EllisWashingtonReport.com,  Facebook, Twitter/X—#JesusIsGod (Isaiah 9:6)  #DCActof1871

 

“No artist tolerates reality.” 

    – Friedrich Nietzsche

“There are always more slaves than masters.” 

    – Charlie Kirk (after Friederich Nietzsche)

“Don’t minor in the majors and major in the minors.”

    – Jimmie Abbington

*N.B.: My series of essays and poems I’ve written over the decades are collectively titled – “I Remember.” The works in this genre always has a tinge of pathos and sadness on my Soul because they were usually written after God put someone on my heart, and I look them up on Google or contact a mutual friend only to find out that they had passed away… sometimes very recently within a few days or weeks. This happened to me when I looked up Jimmie online about 2 weeks after his transition. Nevertheless, to combat this scenario some of my essays of this genre were written on people who were still very much alive at the time of writing—E.g.,

    v  I Remember Mother Julia Mae Green—A Giant in a Wheelchair (Dec.          1, 2007)

March 22, 2007

To Rev. Havious Green & Mother Julia Green 

          POEM – “I REMEMBER”

            by Ellis Washington     

           

Rev. Havious Green (1921-2014)       Julia Mae McCarty Green (1925-2007)                     

I Remember … 30 years ago you were a father to me when I had no father;                                        

You taught me how to pray, how to give thanks to God, how to study the Bible                                   

I Remember … 

Your wife, Mother Julia Green, teaching me how to type, how to write, how to write books … to be Profound.

I Remember … 

Your eight daughters embracing me, making music with me … Being the Brother they never had. 

I Remember … 

I Remember Antioch Church of God in Christ …

I Remember the Love … 

I Remember … I Remember. . . 

Other Selected Writings in the ‘In Memorial’ Genre

    v  In Memoriam—Letter to the Smith Family on the 95th Birthday of Deacon William “Bill” Smith of Greencastle Indiana (Aug. 23, 2024)

    v  I Remember Chiarina Green (my High School Friend) (Oct. 25, 2021)

    v  I Remember Rodney Whitaker (on John Coltrane’s 95th Birthday)          (Sept. 23, 2021)

 

Prologue—Background thoughts about losing our University of Michigan Colleague, Organist, Choir Director, Historian, Jimmie Abbington (UMich, M.M., 1992; DMA, 1996)

13 Oct. 2025

Dear Professor Karen Walwyn,

Thanks for writing me back [regarding my original email sent on 10/09] and for your kind words you stated about my writings. It was so nice to hear from you after 40 years! I promise I will stay in touch and get those recital pictures to you very soon from my Master’s French Horn Recital you accompanied me so expertly on piano in December 1986 at the University of Michigan School of Music Recital Hall.

On a sad note, below is an announcement and obituary I recently sent out to people who knew our old UMich classmate from back in the day – Dr. Jimmie Abbington (April 15, 1960 – Sept. 27, 2025) – Organist, Pianist, Choir Director, Minister of Music, Administrator, Music Historian, Mentor . . . His daily schedule alone would almost kill the average musician, but benefitted a Titan like Abbington—From 1985-96 Abbington attended the University of Michigan part time working on his Master’s in Organ Performance (M.M., 1992) and his DMA in Organ Sacred Music (DMA, 1996) while working a full time position as the Church Organist (1983-96) and Music Director (1993-96) at the Historic Hartford Memorial Baptist Church, Detroit, Mich. under the legendary Civil Rights Pastor, Dr. Charles Gilchrist Adams. Abbington did all this while playing demanding choir concerts and recitals schedule, writing scholarly articles and books, attending the annual Guild of Organist Conference and dozens of other commitments that if I listed some of them, many of my readership would think I was exaggerating. . . I am not! Jimmie was a very busy man and a very, very serious musician. 

As a point of comparison, I tried in vain to match his vigor and assiduousness for just 16 months (Sept. 1985-Dec. 1986)—After starting at UMich in 1985 with Jimmie, changing my embouchure after my first semester, sitting out of all ensembles my second semester throughout the summer to rebuild my lip muscles to their new position, playing my Master’s Horn recital (with piano accompaniment by my fellow graduate student, Prof. Karen Walwyn) in early Dec. 1986, graduating a semester early (Dec. 1986 instead of May 1987) and winning an Assistant Principal Horn position with the Symphony Orchestra of the State of Mexico (Toluca) in Feb. 1987 with the help of my beloved Horn Professor Louis Stout and his contact, the Virtuoso Horn Player and former Assistant Principal Horn of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra Lowell Greer, I was barely able to complete my masters of Music (M.M., 1986) without almost going crazy! For Jimmie, this would have been another series of events in his otherwise very eventful and productive Life.

Notable Aphorisms by Jimmie Abbington (circa 1988)

“Don’t minor in the majors and major in the minors.”

{*N.B.: Meaning = Always plan your major objectives in life very carefully, don’t get sidetracked, and pursue them with intelligence and passion, vision, and vigilance.} I wish I had listened to Jimmie more carefully here. It would have saved me a lot of heartache in some big decisions I made without seeking proper counseling first! And as great literary figures have intoned down through the Ages, once the bell of Destiny tolls, you cannot unring that bell.

             

Ellis to Jimmie: “Did you go to the American Guild of Organists Conference last weekend?”

Jimmie to Ellis: “Of course, Everybody that was anybody was there.”

Ellis to Jimmie: {affronted, but excited} “Oh, was Organist Carlo Curly* there?”

Jimmie to Ellis: {in a deep southern drawl} Like I said, Everybody that was anybody was there!” 

{*N.B.: Although in the 1980s and 90s Organist Carlo Curly was very popular with the masses and considered the “Pavarotti of the Organ,” Jimmie, as a Classical organ purist, didn’t think much of his artistry and overt showmanship as implied in the conversation above (although Jimmie was a ‘showman’ in his own right). Or it could have just been artistic jealously on Jimmie’s part? Afterall, Jimmie, possessing prodigious musical and intellectual gifts was still  like all Men. . . merely human.}

 

Jimmie Abbington and Nietzsche

{Oct. 9 Email Letter sent to colleagues of ours who knew Jimmie}

Dear UMich Friends: 

I’m not sure if you all heard the sad news up there in Michigan and all over America, but on Sept. 27th we lost our University of Michigan classmate (attended 1985-1996), a dear friend and mentor, and long-time Organist and Music Director of Hartford Memorial Baptist Church (Detroit, Mich), Dr. W. James “Jimmie” Abbington. He played organ for Evelyn and my wedding on Sept. 11, 1993, at that church. His organ arrangement playing of the famous orchestra with trumpet solo – Prélude” from Te Deum by Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704) was so magisterial, so transcendent that when Abbington played this work as the bridal entrance music as my future wife, Evelyn was ushered down the aisle by her father in a wheelchair (having lost part of his right leg due to diabetes), I literally almost fainted from overwhelming emotions if my best man from Cass Tech High School (Orlando Hodges) wasn’t by my side to hold me up! That’s a true story.

Jimmie and I had many intellectual conversations through the years—at his Organist office at Hartford Church, at his condo in Southfield, Mich, at Harvard, over the phone, after a recitals, concerts or services at Hartford where he weekly played preludes and fugues by Johann Sebastian Bach, the greatest organist in Classical music who wrote some of the most difficult organ music. Jimmie literally drove the congregation wild with his dazzling artistry which oftentimes especially during his performance of the Prelude or Postlude, I would literally be weeping with tears of joy, overwhelmed with emotion from Jimmie’s fabulous organ playing.

 

Jimmie taught me so much about music, music history, music aesthetics, but also about philosophy, politics, political philosophy, historiography and research methods among many other disciplines. I cited a quote by the irrepressible philosopher and giant of German Romanticism who many people didn’t realize was also a composer of some skill, Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), because this was one of Jimmie’s favorite philosophers whom he often quoted extended passages to me by memory! Followed by his singular, pithy witticisms and brilliant and insightful commentary! Man, Jimmie was one-of-a-kind!

 

Biography #1—Short Biography of Dr. Jimmie Abbington by GIAMusic.com

For those people who didn’t know Jimmie that well, I have reprinted below the biography of Jimmie from his literary agent and publisher, GIAMusic.com which has a complete list of published scholarly  works Jimmie wrote on Black Sacred Music, Black Classical and Church Musicians before and after 1900, Hymnology and Ethnomusicology. 

Abbington, James

Born in Gary, West Virginia, Abbington received his musical education at Morehouse College (BA) and the University of Michigan (MMus, DMA). He is currently Associate Professor of Church Music and Worship at Candler School of Theology, Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, and adjunct professor of Church Music at Morehouse College in Atlanta. He was recently reappointed National Director of Music for the Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc. and has been the Executive Editor of the African American Church Music Series published by GIA Publications (Chicago) for over 20 years. Abbington is a member of the Historic Friendship Baptist Church in Atlanta where he serves as the Director of Music Ministries and Church Organist. 

   

Abbington was Chair of the Core Committee for the historic One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism: An African American Ecumenical Hymnal released in 2018 which consisted of music directors from the African Methodist Episcopal Church, African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, Church of God in Christ, Black Episcopalian Church, United Church of Christ (Congregational), Disciples of Christ (Christian Church), and Seventh-day Adventists. He is the author of numerous articles and publications, including Let the Church Sing On! Reflections on Black Sacred Music (2009); Readings in African American Church Music and Worship, Volume 1 (2001); Volume 2 (2014); and King of Kings: Organ Music of Black Composers, Past and Present, Volume 1 (2008), Volume 2 (2009), and Volume 3 (2017).

 

In 2015 Abbington was honored by The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada (The HSUSC) by being named a Fellow of The Hymn Society. This award, the highest honor given by the organization, was conferred because of Abbington’s work as a scholar, editor, and practitioner of church music with a particular emphasis on African-American congregational song. He is the second Black musician to receive this honor; the first was Harry T. Burleigh, pioneer of the arranged and concert Negro spiritual in 1944.  Speaking of his friend and colleague, Robert Batastini (retired vice president and senior editor of GIA Publications), remarked, “In the very DNA of [Abbington] . . . one would find a compelling devotion for the music of the church, and a compelling passion for being an instrument of that song; endless praise for our God.”

 

Dr. Abbington is in constant demand as an organist, lecturer, clinician, choral conductor, consultant, and scholar.

 

I remember Jimmie coming back to Hartford Memorial Baptist Church I believe in 2009/10 period. He was doing a book signing of a work on Black Hymnology, titled – Dr. James Abbington, Let the Church Sing On! Reflections on Black Sacred Music – (2009; Revised and Expanded, 2022)

His literary agent and publisher, GiaMusic.com gave a nice description of this work which I considered one of his most important books. So much so that, after speaking with Jimmie for about 30 minutes, I decided to purchase this work from him and to give it as a gift that Jimmie graciously wrote a dedication in the inside cover of this opus to our mutual intellectual mentor, the venerable and iconic Musicologist and my teacher for 30 years (1985-2015), Professor Arthur R. LaBrew (1930-2015) which he considered was well-written, well-researched, and a wonderful addition to the canon of the History Black Sacred Music. On this work GIAMusic.com writes the following—

Description:

Under Executive Editor James Abbington, GIA’s African American Church Music Series has expanded to over 400 choral selections—not to mention hymnal supplements, organ music by Black composers, exceptional recordings, and other publications—representing the best African American composers present and past. And the series shows no sign of slowing down.

*N.B.: Published in 2009, 2022 (Rev. ed.)

 

The knowledge and expertise that informs the African American Church Music Series is contained in the essays, introductions, chapters, forewords, articles, and other writings that Abbington penned at the request of publishers and editors. Now, these elements come together inside the cover of one book in four sections: The Spiritual, Pioneering and Contemporary Hymn Writers, Pastoral Considerations, and Worship Resources. This unique and informative compilation of Abbington’s writings will prove vital to pastors, musicians, students, and worshipers in the African American music tradition—and beyond.

Biography #2—Music.Emory.edu of Dr. James “Jimmie” Abbington 

 

 

EDUCATION

· DMA The University of Michigan (Ann Arbor)1999

· MMus The University of Michigan (Ann Arbor)1995

· BA Morehouse College1983

·  

ABOUT

Dr. Abbington’s research interests include music and worship in the Christian church, African American sacred folk music, organ, choral music, and ethnomusicology. Dr. Abbington serves as executive editor of the African American Church Music Series by GIA Publications (Chicago). He served as co-director of music for the Hampton University Ministers’ and Musicians’ Conference. In 2010, Hampton’s Choir Directors’-Organists’ Guild honored Abbington by naming their Church Music Academy after him. He has also served as the national director of music for both the Progressive National Baptist Convention and the NAACP.

 

PUBLICATIONS

· Let the Church Sing On! Reflections on Black Sacred Music, Chicago: GIA Publications (2009)

· King of Kings: Organ Music of Black Composers, Past and Present: Volume 2. Chicago: GIA Publications (2009)

· King of Kings: Organ Music of Black Composers, Past and Present – Volume 1 (2008)

· New Wine in Old Wineskins: A Contemporary Congregational Song Supplement – Volume 1 (2007)

· Spirits That Dwell in Deep Woods: The Prayer and Praise Hymns of the Black Religious Experience by Wyatt Tee Walker, 2003, editor

· Going to Wait! African American Church Worship Resources Between Pentecost and Advent, 2003, co-author

· Waiting to Go! African American Worship Resources from Advent through Pentecost, 2002, co-author

· Readings in African American Church Music and Worship, 2001

· Let Mt. Zion Rejoice! Music in the African American Church, 2001

 

DISCOGRAPHY

· Use Me (2008)

· 42 Treasured Favorites from the African American Heritage Hymnal (2008)

· 46 Hidden Treasures from the African American Heritage Hymnal (2007)

· Beams of Heaven (2006)

· 49 Hidden Treasures from the African American Heritage Hymnal (2005)

· How Excellent Is Thy Name (2004)

· Spirits that Dwell in Deep Woods (2004)

· Guide My Feet (2003)

· Stop By Lord (2002)

· Comes Summertime at Riverside Church (1999)

 

 

Dr. James “Jimmie” Abbington Organist and Music Director at Hartford Memorial Baptist Church, Detroit, Mich. – Dr. Charles Gilchrist Adams, Senior Pastor

After graduating from college, Jimmie’s first major position as a church organist was in 1983 at the historic Hartford Memorial Baptist Church, Detroit, Michigan led by Dr. Charles Gilchrist Adams, Senior Pastor. Two years later in 1985 is when I became a member there where I would be exceedingly delighted each week to see what awesome music Jimmie would perform this week! He never let us down. Each week there was a spectacular display of organ virtuosity and expert choir directing that few people I know could rival. A few months later I ran into Jimmie at the University of Michigan where we were both working on our master’s degrees in music performance, he on organ and I on French horn. 

 

*N.B.: Arthur R. LaBrew, International Encyclopedic Dictionary of Music and Musicians—1570-1520 B.C. – 2015 (1969-2015), 4 Volumes – Jimmie knew my intellectual mentor, the legendary Black Musicologist and Historian Arthur R. LaBrew (1930-2015) who was a 2013 Kresge Artist Fellow and thought highly of his pioneering work giving notoriety to literally tens of thousands of Black Classical musicians, artists, Music Professors and Teachers, Shakespeareans, actors in theatre, dancers, writers, historians, poets, painter, artists through the Ages from Antiquity to 2015, the year he passed away in Feb. 2015. 

Jimmie Abbington, My UMich Master’s Horn Recital, Marc Chagall and The Shawshank Redemption Movie

Although we were both very busy with our respective graduate programs at the University of Michigan School of Music and rarely ran into each other. I remember one particular time Jimmie popped in on me while I was rehearsing with my accompanist and fellow student whom Jimmie and I knew and greatly respected, the venerable, Karen Michele Walwyn, pianist, presently a Professor of Piano at the esteemed Berklee School of Music in Boston, Mass. Jimmie was like a legend you heard about but rarely saw. He floated around the School of Music like a butterfly and this evening he fluttered inside this innocuous classroom I had chosen to rehearse my Master’s Horn Recital music with fellow student, Karen Walwyn, and a very fine young String Bass player (a freshman, Angela Jones) whose name escapes me presently, but I will reprint my recital program soon).

Nevertheless, I can’t remember if Jimmie had this music by Bach that I had never heard of before or was he just sightreading some music someone left on the piano, all I remember is when he plopped down in the chair he began playing the some of the most beautiful enchanting counterpoint you’ve ever heard. After further thought, I think the composition Jimmie played then was J.S. Bach’s —

Chorale Bearbeitung (Choral Reworking) – Trio super: Allein

Gott in der Höh sei Ehr (Alone to God on high be honour) 

A-dur, BWV 664

From the first note, the room fell silent. After playing Jimmie thought nothing of it, he said a few words of what he was studying and just as fast fluttered out of the room like an rare, exquisite, beautiful bird. That event was reminiscent of that iconic scene from the movie, The Shawshank Redemption (1994) starring Morgan Freeman (as Red) and Tim Robbins (as Andy Dufresne).  

Following psychological analysis is a famous soliloquy by the Morgan Freeman character (Red) regarding the motivations of his intellectual friend and fellow prison inmate, Andy Dufresne in the movie, The Shawshank Redemption—“I have to remind myself that some birds aren’t meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright.” In the film, the line is spoken by Red (Morgan Freeman) about Andy (Tim Robbins) after he plays Mozart over the prison’s loudspeakers. He says it’s “like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away.”

The quote, “It was like some beautiful bird [like those above painted by that iconic French impressionist painter, Marc Chagall (1887-1985)] flapped into our drab little cage and made these walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man at Shawshank felt free,” is spoken by Red (Morgan Freeman) in The Shawshank Redemption to describe Andy’s ability to bring a sense of hope and freedom to the prison through moments like playing opera over the loudspeaker—Mozart Opera Scene, Duet from the Marriage of Figaro by W.A. Mozart.

·       The quote’s origin: 

The line comes from a scene where Andy Dufresne broadcasts opera over the prison’s public address system, creating a transcendent moment for the inmates. 

·       The quote’s meaning: 

Red is reflecting on how Andy, like a beautiful bird, momentarily broke the men out of the “cage” of their imprisonment, allowing them to feel a sense of freedom and humanity. 

The “beautiful bird” metaphor: This metaphor also connects to the later discussion about Jake the crow, who serves as a symbol for freedom and Andy himself.

To me, to all of US, Jimmie was indeed that beautiful bird painted above by the French Impressionist painter, Marc Chargall, created by God to set the captives Free. To me, to all of US Jimmie was indeed incapsulated in that famous duet aria, Sull’aria… che soave zeffiretto from Mozart’s immortal opera, The Marriage of Figaro (1786) from that famous scene in the movie, The Shawshank Redemption (1994). To me, Jimmie was that person in our lives that we took for granted like that giant colorful bird that flapped his wings into our moribund and deconstructed lives – not fully appreciating his solicitude, his love, his genius, his abilities to affect our lives in a myriad of positive ways … until God called his servant back home and we suddenly felt like we lost a part of our Soul… 

 

Jimmie Abbington, Professor Allan Bloom, Research at Harvard

After Jimmie left the service of Hartford Memorial Baptist Church, he spent many years as an administrator at Emory University down here where I live in Atlanta, but for the last 2 years, he was a faculty member at Yale University who did a lovely tribute in memory of Jimmie at this link.

Please share this In Memoriam email with all those at Hartford Memorial Baptist Church, the University of Michigan and other institutions who loved the ineffable passion and joy Jimmie’s life brought us for many decades through his love of Sacred Music, History and Philosophy. 

Jimmie’s passing reminded me that my love of philosophy, history, critical thinking, historiography and political philosophy contained in a book Jimmie gave me as a parting gift when I got accepted into graduate school at Harvard GSAS in 1988, titled – “The Closing of the American Mind” by that iconic and legendary UChicago Professor Allan Bloom (1930-1992). This book irrevocably changed my life and philosophical worldview forever!

 

*N.B.: Regarding my highest esteem for University of Chicago Professor of Philosophy. Classist, Academician and Political Theory, Professor Allan Bloom (early 1930-92), my law review article of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes excerpted above has an entire section extolling the intellectual genius of this man. See, Ellis Washington, 1918-2018–100 Years of UnNatural Law of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, 9 Faulkner Law Review 171 (2018). Once again it was Jimmie that gave me Professor Bloom’s New York Times bestselling book, The Closing of the American Mind (1987). A magisterial book of transcendent depth that literally made my brain take a quantum leap into the future!

In early 1989, Jimmie visited me at Harvard where he was on sabbatical from Hartford Church doing some research for his doctoral dissertation. As always, Jimmie and I had a wonderfully intellectual stimulating conversation! From 2007-2012, our Pastor at Hartford Memorial Baptist Church, the late great Dr. Charles G. Adams (1936-2023) taught theology at Harvard and held the position of the first William and Lucille Nickerson Professor of the Practice of Ethics and Ministry.  In 2011, I commemorated this intellectual epiphany gift of knowledge received from Professor Allan Bloom (via Dr. Jimmie Abbington’s solicitude) in 2 essays that were later codified into a book of essays titled – The Progressive Revolution (Vol. 3 of 5)(2015) —

               ·       I Remember Allan Bloom – Part I (12 June 2011)

               ·       I Remember Allan Bloom – Part II (21 June 2011)

Rest in Peace Jimmie & VERITAS Pro Christo et Ecclesiae!

Professor Ellis Washington, J.D.

#CassTech1979, #DePauw1983 (BA Education, History),                           #UMich1986 (M.M. Horn), #JohnMarshallLaw1994 (J.D.) #HarvardGSAS1988, #HarvardLaw1989, #EditorMichL.Rev1989                Blog: www.EllisWashingtonReport.com

Tags: Allan Bloom, Arthur R. LaBrew, classical music, death, featured, harvard, legacy

Category: Commentary