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 April 2007 Back to Table of Contents Back to Archives Main Page Section: Arts & Letters Night and O’Day By Ron Ehmke My first introduction to the late, great jazz singer Anita O’Day came not through any of her records, but through an interview on National Public Radio sometime in the 1980s or early 90s. Her delivery was hypnotic as she talked about her remarkable life in the most frank, matter-of-fact tone imaginable. Whether she was describing being on top of the charts in 1941 or being declared legally dead from a heroin overdose in the late 1960s, she told it like it was. There was no moralizing, no mythologizing, just that amazing voice of hers: worldly, a little hoarse, ever so slightly raspy, yet full of boundless energy.
You hear that voice on every page of O’Day’s 1981 autobiography, High Times Hard Times. George Eells is billed as co-writer, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he turned on the tape recorder and simply let Anita go. It’s all here, from her start as a teenager on the endurance contest circuit of the Depression era to her days as a “canary” for Gene Krupa and Stan Kenton’s big bands to her growing addiction and drug busts to the comeback that was just beginning as the book was published. She even includes as an appendix the medical and psychiatric reports from her fateful near-death experience, right before a discography of all her recording sessions. She tells all, but without a trace of pity, shame or regret. And that’s the way she sang, too. There’s an air of self-confidence, of self-assuredness, in every note. You sense she knows where she’s going to take you over the three minutes of a song, and you can’t wait to be led there. It’s not going to be a straightforward trip — the melody will be twisted and turned, the tempo will speed up to a nearly impossible frenzy, and she’ll probably break into scat — and all of it will be thrilling. I can’t claim to be an expert on O’Day’s recordings — more of an enthusiastic novice — but I can recommend a few places to turn if you want to pay your own tribute to her passing last November. Like many artists of her day, she recorded for many labels, and I haven’t yet found a compilation that spans all or most of them. I fully expect such an anthology to materialize any day now, but in the meantime, you’ll need to do some scavenging. For her early days with Krupa, try the 18-track CD Let Me Off Uptown!, reissued in 1999 by Sony. If you want a bigger sample of the Krupa and Kenton era (including her big hit with the latter, “And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine”), the British label Proper offers a four-disc, 88-song box called Young Anita at a bargain price. The bulk of O’Day’s most highly acclaimed solo work was recorded for Norman Granz’s legendary Verve label between 1952 and 1962. (While this long run of albums is often cited as an extremely successful collaboration between an artist and a record company, the singer is characteristically candid about Granz in her memoir; she accuses him of waiting to conduct business negotiations with his artists until they were high, and she believes she was perpetually in the shadow of Ella Fitzgerald, who was much less high-maintenance than Anita.) In grand Verve tradition, this stuff has been endlessly repackaged over the years, but aficionados recommend sticking with the original albums. There are seventeen of these, so you’ll be busy for a while. If you’re not quite that hardcore, Anita Sings the Most, recorded with Oscar Peterson’s combo in 1957, is a good start. This longtime critics’ favorite includes her jaw-dropping version of “Them There Eyes.” After parting ways with Verve, O’Day hit a low point, only to rebound when fans in Japan embraced her live performances. She released several of these concert recordings as well as studio efforts on her own label, Kayo Stereophonics, throughout the 1970s and 80s. Her voice isn’t quite what it was 20 or 30 years earlier, of course, but the energy level is as high as ever, and these discs (including Angel Eyes) have their avid supporters. More controversial is O’Day’s final release, Indestructible!, which appeared on Kayo shortly before her death. While the singer’s vitality and charisma may never have waned, her singing voice is by this point a nearly unlistenable croak. I’m reminded of Johnny Cash’s haunting final albums, except that where the Cash recordings feature sparse, appropriately understated accompaniment and production, Indestructible! is bombastic. To really get what was magical about O’Day in her prime, you need to see her in action, and her official website (www.anitaoday.com) houses several brief video clips (including her two famous numbers from the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival documentary, Jazz on a Summer’s Day, plus a tantalizing glimpse of a 1963 Tokyo concert now out on DVD) plus the original liner notes from most of her albums. 2007 marks the release of Anita O’Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer, the first feature-length documentary about the musician. Between that, the book, and all those albums, her inimitable voice should be with us for a nice long time. back to top back to table of contents Current Issue | About Forever Young | Where to Find | Advertise | Our Advertisers | Community Calendar | Contest | Clubs | Contact Us | Archives | Home |
