Anita O'Day Sings The Winners

 

What's Story Morning Glory

Anita O'Day Sings The Winners
Side one arranged by Marty Paich
Side two arranged by Russ Garcia
Verve V-8485
1961

From the back cover:  Anita's tribute to the poll winners, an album idea suggested by Norman Granz, who supervised production of this set, represents further irrepressible proof that Miss O'Day's once dormant career continues to exfoliate and that at her present best she is, as Russ Wilson of the Oakland Tribune has noted, "singing better than she ever has." Her albums for Verve have also succeeded, for the most part, in projecting at least some of the burningly exuberant impact Anita has on an audience in a club. She's one of the very few singers left who really improvises from tune to tune and night to night, and watching as well as hearing her hurl through the challenge of a set can be exhilarating as watching and hearing a first-rate horn man."Jazz to me," says Anita, "is singing what is happening now. When I sing Body and Soul, for example, it's my conception after having heard and lived the song for a long time and then improvising on the basis of what I know of it and what I feel about it right now." In this round of toasts, Anita first establishes the melody and then goes for herself in the second chorus. Anita was unusually pleased with both arrangers, Marty Paich on the first side and Russ Garcia on the second; the co-ordinator, Barney Kessel; and she even insists on accolading the engineer whom she knows only as Mr. Bones (Bones Howe-ed.). She is, in short, quite happy about the date, a situation that is not always the case with the outspoken Anita who is as hotly spontaneous in her conversation as in her singing.

Take The "A" Train for many years was Duke's theme and here is made into a huskily rolling but relaxed express. Tenderly, long identified with Oscar Peterson, indicates Anita's capacity for romanticism. She scats with zestful confidence through the Jimmy Giuffre Four Brothers that helped strongly to identify that Herman Herd. Stan Getz's lyrical solo on Ralph Burns' Early Autumn for Woody Herman first established Stan's reputation. Anita's version is also lyrical and also wholly jazz in its phrasing, beat and even the nature of her sound. Night in Tunisia, a vintage part of Dizzy Gillespie's repertory, was once recorded by Sarah Vaughan as a slow ballad, Interlude. Anita uses a faster tempo more in context with Dizzy's usual handling of the tune. The special lyrics that Anita sings to Four, the song Miles Davis has recorded, were written by Bill Loughborough, best known for the toned drums he invented, the boobams.

Mary Lou Williams' What's Your Story, Morning Glory, was one of the most attractive originals in the Jimmie Lunceford library, and it's an enigma to me why so few stimulated in large part by the subtly multi-linear use Gerry Mulligan put it to in his quartet. Sing, Sing, Sing is to me much more palatable in this version than in its original showboat exist. ence. It turns into a tour-de-scat for Anita that few other contemporary vocalists could sustain. Body and Soul, Coleman Hawkins' psychic annuity, becomes as instrumentalized a vocal as I expect you can find any. where, including pure scat. The Peanut Vendor that helped sell an early version of the Kenton band is treated with swinging wit by Anita along with more resilient scat singing. Frenesi, the song Artie Shaw brought back from Mexico to kick off another stage of his career, has rarely been so warmly revived. But then heat is the element Anita brings to everything she does. She's one of the last really "hot" jazz singers. – NAT HENTOFF

Duke Ellington - Take the "A" Train

Oscar Peterson - Tenderly
Dizzy Gillepsie - Interlude (Night In  Trunisia)
Miles Davis - Four
Stan Getz - Early Autumn
Woody Herman - Four Brothers
Gene Krupa & Benny Goodman - Sing, Sing, Sing
Gerry Mulligan - My Funny Valentine
Artie Shaw - Frenesi
Coleman Hawkings - Body And Soul
Jimmie Lunceford - What's Your Story, Morning Glory
Stan Kenton - Peanut Vendor