Anita O'Day 1919 - 2006

For me, the great thing about being as old as I am is that my listening explorations are no longer tied to the current. In the last five years or so I developed quite an affection for Ms. O'Day. Light one up for her today.

Anita O’Day, whose coolly ebullient and rhythmically assured vocal style made her a premier singer of both the big-band and postwar jazz eras, and whose taste for fast living secured her name as one of jazz’s toughest survivors, died yesterday in Los Angeles. She was 87.

From the late great show Nightmusic:

... Through most of the 1940s, Ms. O’Day ranked among the best of the big-band vocalists. Her first big break came with the Gene Krupa Orchestra, and it was with that band that she had her first hit, a duet with the trumpeter Roy Eldridge called “Let Me Off Uptown.” Though essentially a novelty tune, it was also a bold stroke at a time when black and white musicians were still not commonly heard side by side.

...Her Sunday afternoon performance at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, as captured in Bert Stern’s film “Jazz on a Summer’s Day,” was one of her great offhanded achievements. Turned out in a crisp black dress and ostrich-feathered hat, she sang an insinuating “Sweet Georgia Brown” and a breakneck “Tea for Two,” both with a playful mastery.