Anita oday autobiography

Her autobiography.
O'Day emerged in 1941 as a big-band singer whose tough look and take-charge style established her as a musically savvy leader of men, not a begowned accessory.
The distinctive and celebrated jazz singer Anita O'Day experienced both "high times and hard times" — as her autobiography is so aptly titled.

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Popular Music History

Author and Journalist

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James Gavin is the author of four acclaimed books and dozens of New York Times features; he is a worldwide public speaker, a Grammy nominee, and a recipient of two ASCAP Deems Taylor-Virgil Thomson Awards for excellence in music journalism. His most recent book is Is That All There Is?: The Strange Life of Peggy Lee (Atria Books/Simon & Schuster, 2014). His previous books are Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne (Atria Books, 2009), Deep in a Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker (Knopf, 2002; republished by Chicago Review Press in 2011), and Intimate Nights: The Golden Age of New York Cabaret (Grove Weidenfeld, 1991; Back Stage Books, 2006). His biography of George Michael will be published by Abrams in 2022.

How did Anita O’Day—the legendary jazz singer who, along with Chet Baker, Miles Davis, Gerry Mulligan, and Stan Getz, led the so-called “cool school” of modern jazz—define cool?

“That means doing everything that you like to do and getting away with it, you dig?”

Her traits included a frosted tone

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High Times, Hard Times

February 19, 2020

“I went into the club where Roy Eldridge was working and he came up and said, “I heard you on the radio.” I thought he meant a record. “No, a commercial. For Dr. Pepper,” he said, “I told my friend, ‘That’s Anita. Nobody else sings like that.’” He was delighted I had my own sound and he could recognize it just as I can recognize him on any old tune. That recognition is the ultimate respect between our kind of musician.”

Seems to me that the all-time Jazz Vocalist pantheon, as it stands now Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan--- missed one. As unique and individualist as any in the Trio of greats, Anita O'Day never even tried a song she couldn't swing, swing hard and lay to rest with distinction. Her voice is more like an instrument than any of the pantheon, even Ella, by virtue of what it is not: no embroidery, no tremolo, no vibrato, and hardly any coloratura swooshes whatsoever.

Her early life consisted of Marathons, Walkathons, “Real Live Baby Raffles”, and other antique notions of the thirties; her life in the Biz w

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Anita O'Day

American jazz singer (1919–2006)

For the documentary film, see Anita O'Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer.

Anita O'Day
O'Day in 2005
Birth name	Anita Belle Colton
Also known as	"The Jezebel of Jazz"
Born	(1919-10-18)October 18, 1919 Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.
Died	November 23, 2006(2006-11-23) (aged 87) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Genres
Occupation	Singer
Years active	1934–2006
Labels	Verve Emily Productions Kayo Stereophonic

Musical artist

Anita Belle Colton (October 18, 1919^[1] – November 23, 2006),^[2] known professionally as Anita O'Day, was an American jazz singer and self-proclaimed “song stylist” widely admired for her sense of rhythm and dynamics, and her early big band appearances that shattered the traditional image of the "girl singer". Refusing to pander to any female stereotype, O'Day presented herself as a "hip" jazz musician, wearing a band jacket and skirt as opposed to an evening gown. She changed her surname from Colton to O'Day, pig Latin for "dough", slang for mone