Customer Reviews

Let Me Off Uptown: The Best of Anita O'Day with Gene Krupa

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is big band jazz/swing with vocals, and most of the selections were recorded in 1941, half-a-year before Pearl Harbor changed the destinies of all the players, all the audiences. These are O'Day's first recordings, and her star power is evident from her first verses. She started 61 years ago, and still sings occasionally in Los Angeles. Amazing. Gene Krupa was a good bandleader in addition to being a wild drummer. His orchestra has some great players, especially Roy Eldrige on trumpet. If you could only afford one CD in your collection to represent the pre-war big band sound, this would not be a bad choice. I only knew of four of the 18 songs in advance, but frankly, all of them are good listening. I am not a dancer, but this CD makes me want to dance; I am not a singer, but it makes me wish I could; I don't play an instrument, but this CD reminds me to regret it. Whether you approach big band music as a serious fan, or with a campy attitude, you cannot help but have fun when you give Anita, Gene, Roy and their cohorts 53 minutes to serenade you.

Anita O'Day's voice is rythmic and lilting as it floats above the driving Krupa beat. To me, however, the best reason to purchase this CD is Roy Eldridge's outstanding solos. Listening to him propel to the heavens on Let Me Off Uptown is worth the price of the CD alone. Remastering is superb--outstanding sound complete with CEDAR noise reduction. One can only hope that Columbia gets around to treating the rest of its trove of swing era classics with the same care.

Anita is simply the best there is in the female jazz vocal department, always using her voice as an instrument, she is the best of all bop singers, and was the best singer of the swing era too. These are her early sessions with Gene Krupa & Roy Eldridge, they are all wonderful, especially O'Day. Although her Verve sessions from the 50's & 60's are deliciously more enjoyable, these sessions should satisfy swing vocalist fans, as well as O'Day fans. Also get her autobiagraphy to read while you listen to these amazing and stunning sides, and last go see her, she still puts on a darn good show, and creates a lot of excitement by costantly improvising. As an Anita O'Day fan I try to see her once a month at The Atlas in Los Angeles, though she plays more intimate clubs too.

I thoroughly enjoyed this compilation, both the tracks I was familiar with and those I was not. The sound quality is very good indeed - only "Massachussetts" is slightly underpowered - I think it may be an alternate take to the one I have on vinyl, where Krupa's cymbols (absent here) drive the surging middle riff section. O'Day was a very different big band singer to her more anonymous predecessors - her singing very much expresses a personality, integral to the band, part of its character, not just a decorative addition. Krupa experimented bravely with bop in the band's final years, but never allowed the music to sag under its own weight as happened with many bands as the era drew to a close; Everything here is classic swing, snappy and tight. Inevitably, any reviews of the O'Day/Krupa years will linger over the phenomenal contributions of their star trumpeter Roy Eldridge, 'Little Jazz', hero and inspiration of Dizzy Gillespie. He was probably the best big band soloist ever. 'Let Me Off Uptown' is his most famous moment with Krupa, but his solo on 'Green Eyes' is for me even greater - one of those rare moments when a single player raises an ordinary tune to the level of sheer wonder. Superbly underpinned first just by (an excellent) Krupa and then the whole surging band, Eldridge cuts loose into the realm of the sublime, and I'd recommend the album for this alone, but, of course, there's much more to enjoy from all the participants. Eldridge had a rather torrid time with the band as the only black member, particularly on tour, and the strain he felt (and his own sense of stardom) made him somewhat prickly, as O'Day has testified to - interesting to know when listening to their easy rapport on the title track.

This is a fine mid price collection sounding wonderful with great photos and notes...Husky voice Anita, Roy blowing,Krupa banging his drum..this is fine stuff that layed it down for others to follow.
If you dig it get Drummer Man, a later verve revisit by this band that really swings hard on a lot of these numbers as well as UPTOWN cd on Columbia from which many of these tracks were taken.(hard to find but worth it)..Roy's Little Jazz collection is also a must.. it is all pure.

Though largely duplicating Sony's 1990 Gene Krupa anthology featuring Roy Eldridge -- you should choose that one instead -- this album has its own charms, starting with Miss O'Day's suave rendition of "Opus One" (arranged, like the TD original, by Sy Oliver); then onto "That's What You Think," an unbroodingly brooding ballad; and "A Little Bit South of North Carolina," which proves novelty tunes can be excellent too -- when they're played by Krupa and sung by the rare Anita.

Excellent transfers; as I noted in my review of the Eldridge, this disc vastly improves upon the test pressing for the rejected "Barrelhouse Bessie from Basin Street", though the sound is little different otherwise. A peculiarity: the engineer has eliminated the puffy "P" from Miss O'Day's "pitch" in "Let Me Off Uptown." Does that make it less authentic?

I am an Anita O'Day collector and am glad to have this compilation. In every track, the fidelity is cleaned up and brightened and sounds better than ever. Frankly, I have not heard a better remastering. The sound quality is much better than we should expect for recordings from 1940s shellac originals.

I subtract one star for a mistake: in one track, "Deep in the Blues," The singer is Irene Daye, who sang with Gene Krupa in 1938-1941. She was replaced by O'Day in 1941. The inclusion of this track was a goof by Acewonder/Werner_Last, the company that compiled the album.

On the same day in 2010, Werner Last released another compilation, "The Swing of Things,"with the identical tracks but a different sequence. I don't understand why. Maybe it's a contractual thing, where Werner had to Provide two albums for someone who was not paying attention. Or maybe we are witnessing the very soul of piracy, where the pirate, answering some compulsion we cannot fathom, steals from himself. Anyway, I did buy these songs twice because I wasn't paying attention.

If you are not an audio fetishist, your collection from this artist and these years will be better served by Young Anita. Other CDs concentrate on Anita O'Day with Gene Krupa Let Me Off Uptown: The Best of Anita O'Day with Gene Krupa and with Stan Kenton First Lady of Swing [ORIGINAL RECORDINGS REMASTERED]. They sound great to me. Try Amazon's audio sample feature if you are worried about hifi.

Only one thing wrong here, The CD is IMCOMPLETE. In this case, the greatest white female jazz vocalist in history DESERVES better recognition, don't you think? Of course, you can only squeeze so much music on one CD, that's true. But Sony/Columbia has some explaining to do here. They've put out Complete multi-disc box sets of Helen Forrest with Benny Goodman, Dick Haymes with Harry James, along with other "Complete" series that'll fit on one disc. Some of the best material Anita did is lacking here, including some of my personal favorites. Columbia did a better job when they released a two-record set back in the 70s, (which also included Anita's duets with Buddy Stewart) Hopefully, Sony will correct this situation soon. Also, I sure would like to hear a clean version of Hop, Skip, and Jump, Let's Get Away From It All, and Chickery Chick. So, let's get with it SONY...

while I personally favor Anita O'Day's recordings on Verve (with Billy May and his orchestra) from the 50's, these early recordings she did with Gene Krupa fronting his Big Band from 1940-41, are classics, too. Her voice has not quite developed to the depth of perfection she would achieve later on, but her phrasing and and sound are still outstanding, and the arrangements, and playing of the musicians are superb. If you like Big Band, vocal music, or jazz, you will definitely enjoy this CD.