Anita O'Day 1919-2006

I definitely enjoy jazz, but I wouldn’t consider myself a huge aficionado. I really haven’t studied its history in-depth. My main interest in jazz seems to be improvisational vocalists. (Not all of them improvise, which I don’t get. Isn’t that the whole point of “jazz”?) I don’t know why, they just speak to me for some reason. Come to think of it, most singers I like, pop, jazz or otherwise employ some sort of improvisation. Betty Carter, one of my favorites, had this to say about another favorite during an interview:

"I can't think of any white girl singer who has her own style except, perhaps Anita O'Day,"

I agree. If ever there was an original white girl singer, it was Anita. That quote is found in the liner notes of this CD. Ted Ono, who penned the liner notes, goes on to say this:

“For those who are not familiar with Ms. Carter it should be explained that this was the greatest compliment she could have ever given to a white jazz singer. That is because she has been known to be terribly down on non-black singers who received any favorable attention from jazz DJs and critics.”

From the outset, I wanted my blog to include selections of music that I like. So here you go, my first will pay tribute to one of my favorite singers, Anita O’Day. Anita passed away last Thanksgiving.

I, like most of her fans, first discovered Anita O’Day by watching “Jazz on a Summer’s Day”, the fantastic Bert Stern film documenting the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival/America’s cup. It’s a documentary that was filmed in a similar style to the “Woodstock” documentary that was done years later. Her performance was nothing short of stellar. She sang "Sweet Georgia Brown" and “Tea for Two”. I found the performance fascinating mostly because of the strange dichotomy between the way she looked and the way she sang. When you see her come upon the stage, she is dressed as she later described, for “tea time”, because of the afternoon time that she performed. She looks sharp, but not that unlike a model in some 1950s car advertisement. Once she starts to sing, however, it’s sort of shock. She gets down and swings hard! Then, to later find out that she was in the middle of her fifteen year long heroin addiction, and that she was quite high off her mind during this performance, well, it was quite unexpected and intriguing to say the least. Her 1981 autobiography “High Times, Hard Times” is a fascinating and entertaining read I highly recommend. She also talks about this performance, her heroin addiction and other subjects in this great 1987 NPR interview.

She actually started out with big bands during the swing era, but later developed more of a bebop sensibility out of necessity. A doctor had accidentally sliced off her uvula during a tonsillectomy when she was very young; as a result she had no natural vibrato. She was unaware of this until years later when she had already begun singing. She used it to her favor and came up with her distinctive style which was very ahead of it’s time for the 1940s. The songs I chose this time around showcase that distinct style....

....OK, maybe not so much this first song. This cut of “Memories of You” was recorded with the Stan Kenton orchestra in 1945. I think this song, (along with her later signature “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square”) definitely proves that despite her vocal “limitations” (for lack of a better word) she could still knock a ballad out of the park.

The undisputable highlights of her career were the seventeen albums she recorded on the Norgran and Verve labels between 1952 and 1962. This is “Body and Soul” off the “Anita Sings the Winners” album from 1958.

“Once Upon a Summertime” is the title track to the second album she released on her own label, after she got clean in the late sixties. However, I believe the track was recorded live before she got clean, or, it at least sure sounds like it! I love her dreamy take on this song.

Anita O’Day had a very long career, literally spanning six decades, so I’m sure you’ll see her popping up on here again.