Customer Reviews

Young Anita

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

 

 

It would be difficult to find a better deal for a jazz fan. Compilatons for artists of the stature of Anita are usually much more expensive. Anita O'Day's early recordings have been difficult to find and when available have been costly. This 4 CD set brings together all her comercial recordings from the 40's with a few air-checks and alternate takes.

Anita O'Day is probably best known for her solo career in the 50's, 60's and 70's when she created a style of singing that is still being immatated. Her early recordings show that in her younger years as a big band singer she had as strong an influance on that era as she did in later years. She was one of 4 or 5 female vocalists who defind the the big band style. During the time of these recordings, she was THE big band singer. She was the coolest, the hippest, the swingingest, the brattyest, and the one who taught everyone how to sing a fast song with style and without sounding rushed. You can easily hear this on "Green Eyes" where another singer sings the first chorus in a tense rushed manner, to be followed by Anita at a faster tempo but sailing through it like a cloud on a summer's day. Even Ella Fitzgerald, although promising, was still too young at that time to be at Anita's level. Anita's recordings with the Krupa band are some of the hottest of the big band era. These CD also cover the beginning of her solo career, and the emergance of an even more interesting and intimate style that was to facinate audiences in the 50's 60's and 70's. This collection shows that Anita was always a great artist, even in the beginning of her career, and the price of the collection makes it an unbelievable steal.

Having owned several expensive French imports for the various years of early Anita O'Day performances, I can say that the Proper Box set is an incredible value. They have taken almost all of her early performances with various small groups and large bands (including Krupa, Kenton, and Basie!) and put them all in one place, in chronological order and with decent sound. What's more, they put out an excellent booklet, with biography, photos, and complete discocraphy...kind of a mini-mosaic! Unlike some of her later, more sophisticated (and occasionally flat) performances, she is heard on these discs with a slightly less husky voice and always spot-on in tune and musically swinging.

As another viewer has pointed out, this set contains material that has fallen out of copyright while the artist is still living and she won't receive any royalties from this issue. I suggest he send her a check to salve his conscience and then go back to enjoying the music! Proper has done other great box sets of Django Reinhardt, Fats Navarro, Charlie Parker, and Bud Powell among others and I say more power to them! Another british company, JSP, offers similar box sets with remastering and extensive documentation and Mosaic, the leader in this field actually buys limited copyrights from the parent labels. If you can afford it, Mosaic puts out the highest quality sets.

I purchased this box set with very little prior knowledge of this genre of music and I am extremely pleased with it. I played this at my workplace and many of my coworkers complimented the music. Some people might criticize the albums' quality of sound but I think that's just part of the allure -- to give you that "old-time" feel. It's a great starter set at a great price. This music lifts the spirits and makes a room smile!

Anita's sharp, uninflected tone let her sing faster than anyone else. Her sides with Gene Krupa are almost unbelievable. In keeping with the style of that time, she only comes in midway through a song, but she swings fearlessly and aggressively. Disc 1 is my favorite here.

I do have 2 caveats. I know the technology back then was not ideal, but still some of the later songs here are thick and muddy. Also, on Discs 3 and 4 she was coasting from her big-band days to her 1950's career, and some of those songs are uninspired. She was sometimes good, sometimes perfunctory. Get this one, and a Verve collection, and enjoy what no one does anymore: pure jazz singing.

Anita O'Day was a singer whose particular virtues become apparent to post-bebop ears only after time. She didn't have the subtle inflection of Billie Holiday, the sheer beauty of Ella Fitzgerald, or the romantic elaboration of Sarah Vaughan. Directness, lack of affectation, energy, enthusiasm, and projection of a working-class, non-kittenish femininity marked her singing.
Unfortunately, O'Day wound up being buried, for the first part of her career, in muscle-bound big bands like the Gene Krupa and Stan Kenton orchestras. Since she only sings during some of the numbers, and even then may be paired with unendurable male romantic leads, and surrounded by corny soloists who belong in Vegas, collecting her work can be like digging around in Paul Whiteman for Bix Beiderbecke solos. People used to put up with it because she danced the whole time, but you don't get that part listening to an old record.
This set fixes that. You're still listening to a lot of second and third-rate jazz music, but at least you know she'll sing in this number.
Of course, this is one of those "re-issue" labels that take advantage of lapse of copyright. You may not care about the record company - they're all jerks, as well as owned by somebody in some country you've never heard of, right? - but the last I heard, Anita O'Day was still alive, and shouldn't artists get some fruits from their labors? She won't get a penny from this.
Five stars for O'Day. Three stars for band mediocrity and questionable re-issue practices.