November 7, 1970
In 2006, author John Fordham had the following to say about Anita O'Day:
"There was her technique--huskytoned, steel-hard in phrasing, with immaculate timing, an unsentimental tenderness and a shrewd wit. And there was her attitude to the male-dominated business in which she was working. O'Day's career was full of setbacks, yet her reputation as one of the most intelligent, technically skillful and independent of jazz singers never dimmed, and she performed into her 80s. ... O'Day appealed to listeners hooked on jazz's improvisational edge, rather than on the laconic mannerisms of its phrasing, or its hip cachet. Both as an interpreter of lyrics, and as a virtuoso of that most treacherous of jazz temptations, the instrument-mimicking style of scat, O'Day was a supreme improviser."I don't think there's any better description of Anita O'Day than Fordham's, a "Supreme Improviser."
Like many people, I first encountered O'Day's singing in Jazz on Summer's Day, a nearly wordless 1960 documentary of the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival. It's an iconic performance in an iconic film. Again, John Fordham:
"In Jazz On a Summer's Day, she delivered 'Tea for Two' as if the syllables were drum patterns, and reinvented 'Sweet Georgia Brown' with a remarkable lightness of touch. If her pitching could be wayward, her avoidance of the obvious usually swept over it, and her combination of relaxation and rhythmic drive at a fast tempo made that Newport set one of the most memorable jazz vocal performances ever captured on film."
Between 1957 and 1963, O'Day recorded more than fifteen albums for Verve. Vaulted by these albums and the exposure that came with Jazz on a Summer's Day, O'Day became an international star. But the second half of the 1960s was a different story.
O'Day almost didn't live to perform at the 1970 Berliner Jazztage [Berlin Jazz Days] festival, where she recorded today's selection. In the late-1960s, with her career on a sharp downward trajectory, O'Day almost died from a heroin overdose. O'Day revealed her struggles with drugs with brutal honesty in her 1981 autobiography, High Times, Hard Times (Limelight Editions, 2004). Like Art Pepper's autobiographical confessions, it's not a book for those who are squeamish about confronting the ugliness of drug addiction. Spurred by her brush with death, O'Day finally kicked the habit at the end of the decade.
Listening to Anita O'Day in Berlin, it's clear that she's on the comeback trail. Supported by Georges Arvanitas' swinging trio, O'Day sounds re-vitalized, soaring and confident. The album kicks off with two songs with a perfect theme for an improvising artist. Both "Let's Fall in Love" and "Your Wings" are about taking risks to find something special. O'Day also has a knack for taking on contemporary material and making it her own. For example, she skillfully blends Lennon & McCartney's "Yesterday" with Jerome Kern's "Yesterdays," and her version of Bobby Hebb's "Sunny" is joyous and swinging. For someone who was just emerging from some dark times, the song's first few lines must have had special meaning: "Sunny, yesterday my life was filled with rain / Sunny, you smiled at me and really eased the pain / The dark days are gone, and the bright days are here."
As far as I can tell, Anita O'Day in Berlin has never been reissued in any digital format. That's a bummer, because the music deserves to be heard. However, there is a video of O'Day's Berliner Jazztage performance, made for German television, on YouTube -- at least for now. (See below.) It's better than nothing. But if you want to hear the music in high fidelity (and you do!), you'll need to get the MPS vinyl.
More Anita O'Day
In the early-70s, soon after this Berlin performance, O'Day formed Emily Records. (O'Day named the label after her beloved pet dog.) Given the tough market for jazz in the U.S., she created her own label, so she could release her music independently. The Emily LP that I like best is My Ship. (It was originally recorded for Trio Records in Japan in 1975 and released on Emily in the U.S. in 1979.)
I love the Verve albums of Anita O'Day and have 13 of them in my collection, mostly on vinyl. She is hipness personified. My only comment about the 1970 Berlin performance is that there is another filmed performance from the same tour, this time in Oslo on October 21, 1970. This performance was issued as part of the Jazz Icons DVD series, and it was paired with an earlier (1963) performance in Sweden. The Olso set includes Let's Fall in Love, Yesterday/Yesterdays, Four Brothers, I Can't Get Started, Sweet Georgia Brown, and Tea for Two.
ReplyDeleteEnjoying all of your comments, hannagramp! Keep 'em coming!
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