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ANITA O'DAY: THE LIFE OF A JAZZ SINGER Send This Review to a Friend
This fascinating documentary is a reminder of how important a singer Anita O’Day was. There is a particular moment when that becomes hauntingly clear in a film clip as she sings a divine rendition of “Sweet Georgia Brown” at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival. There is also ultimate sadness, as in the last years of her life—she died at 87 in 2006—she salvages what’s left of her voice and jazz technique to gamely sing from her heart. The film makes clear her courage as a survivor of a life of hard knocks as a result of her long drug addition before, as she says, she kicked the habit cold turkey.
“Anita O’Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer,” directed by Robbie Cavolina and Ian McCrudden, is filled with interviews of those who knew her and evaluate her contributions to the art of jazz. There are clips of interviews with her taken from talk shows. But best of all is getting a chance to see her perform. Her technique was such that it thrilled the knowledgeable musicians of her time. Her vocals reflected an easy-going manner with O’Day letting her voice do the work unpretentiously, but creating flowing note combinations that placed her in a category with some of the more notable jazz stars of her time, such as Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Billie Holiday.
O’Day talks candidly of her struggles with drugs and booze over a 20-year period and how it affected her life. It is clear that she was a feisty woman. But the film fails to explore sufficiently what led her down that path in the first place. Maybe there isn’t any available explanation and it wasn’t possible to get at the psychological roots. But it makes one wonder.
However, it isn’t her personal life that matters. It is her greatness as a jazz singer that’s her most important legacy, preserved, of course, on recordings. That is made amply clear by this intriguing portrait of an intriguing performer. A White Whale release.
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