Great jazz stylist celebrated in 'Anita O’Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer'
She’s the greatest jazz vocalist you never heard of. But music aficionados, and anyone who was around to dig her in her heyday of the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s, rank Anita O’Day right up there with her better-remembered contemporaries, Billie Holliday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sarah Vaughan. One of the very few white performers to hold her own among such illustrious company, O’Day was more than just a singer. With her cool, classy style, and the astonishing versatility of her voice, she was celebrated in her day at “America’s number one swing songstress.”
Those who don’t remember O’Day are in for a treat with the musical documentary Anita O’Day: The Life Of A Jazz Singer. Assembled by her former manager, Robbie Cavolina, along with Ian McCrudden, the film introduces a new generation of fans to O’Day as both a performer and personality. Less experimental in style than its subject, the film has its share of static talking heads providing opinions. But O’Day herself is the star of her own story, whether in candid interviews with the likes of Dick Cavett, David Frost, and Tom Brokaw, or as a feisty octogenarian looking back on her own life without apology. And the film triumphs in a wealth of vintage film and kinescope clips of O’Day onstage performing her signature numbers.
Starting out as a teenage club singer, O’Day became the “girl singer” in the big band of drummer Gene Krupa, where she scandalized audiences in the ’40s with her sassy jive duets with black trumpeter Roy Eldredge. Their hit, “Let Me Off Uptown,” is a highlight of the film. After five years, some lively film shorts, and plenty of notoriety with Krupa, she joined the Stan Kenton band for a year, and recorded another hit, “And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine.”
Striking out on her own in the ’50s, she hooked up with drummer John Poole, who would be her musical partner for the next 30 years. Fronting her own band, O’Day hit the road to become a fixture at jazz clubs and festivals across the country, renowned for the sublime instrument of her voice. “Jazz is a freelance sketch,” she says at one point, and her intuitive jazz improvs and syncopated styling became legendary. In one inspired moment, the filmmakers divide the screen into quarters to show footage of O’Day singing the same song (“Let’s Fall In Love”) in four different eras in her career. Each version has its edge of uniqueness; all are impeccable.
But the jazz life on the road takes its toll, and through her user friend, Poole, O’Day became hooked on heroin, a habit that lasted 16 years. Only after surviving a near-fatal OD, did she finally get off the stuff. On camera, O’Day is frank about the seduction of addiction, the musician’s need to find a way to relax in the midst of brutal travel and performing schedules, and the cavalier foolishness of the young and seemingly invulnerable, eager to try the next cool thing. Yet she refuses to indulge in moral hand-wringing; when interviewer Bryant Gumbel tries to goad her into repudiating the dark places in her past, she firmly tells him, “That’s just the way it went down.”
Drugs never impaired O’Day’s performances. A TV clip of her phenomenal rendition of “Honeysuckle Rose,” one of her early recording hits on the fledgling Verve label, is a real showstopper. The filmmakers also have the sense to include, almost in its entirety, O’Day’s utterly spine-tingling performance of “Sweet Georgia Brown” at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival (filmed for the documentary Jazz On A Summer’s Day) which vaulted O’Day into international stardom. (Unfortunately, the filmmakers also commit the bonehead error of running commentary on the soundtrack over O’Day’s singing at a couple of points in this sequence.)
But most of the time, the clips of O’Day in action onstage are as fresh and unfettered as O’Day herself, who died last year at 87, just after this film was completed. This musical tribute keeps her flame alive.
*** (out of four)
With Anita O’Day. A film by Robbie Cavolina and Ian McCrudden. Not rated. 90 minutes.
Anita O’Day: The Life Of A Jazz Singer, presented by Kuumbwa Jazz, plays for one week only, October 31-November 6, at the Nickelodeon.
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