Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells A Story
Rod the Mod finds his solo footing, headed for stardom, with the Faces in his wake.
6:00 AM GMT 22/06/2011
Features Disc of the day
Anita O'Day
...And Billy May Swing Rodgers And Hart
(Verve, 1960)
Indestructible jazz legend gets through bad men and heavy drugs to hipsterize big band jazz.
Earlier this year I re-read O'Day's no-holds-barred autobiography and watched the recently released Life Of A Jazz Singer documentary. It sent me into a month of Anita worship. Anyone who's seen her iconic performance at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival will have experienced her extraordinarily rhythmic voice and ice-cool delivery - the latter due in no small part to the whack of heroin she'd been given just before taking the stage. By the time she came to record this second collaboration with arranger Billy May, she'd endured two abortions, been busted for drugs twice, suffered alcoholism and nervous breakdowns, spent six months in jail and released eight solo albums for the Verve label. All are worth investigating, but it's this that best reveals the breadth of her talent. The hypnotic rush of Johnny One Note, the smoky big band swing of Ten Cents A Dance and a be-bop reading of Have You Met Miss Jones? are fine displays of Anita the "song stylist" (she preferred that to "singer"), while her understated takes on candlelit standards such as Bewitched and Spring Is Here are startling and sensuous. It's this combination of beatnik flair and pared-down intimacy that puts her up there with the Holy Trinity of Holiday, Fitzgerald and Vaughan. Like her superstar contemporaries, O'Day was a glutton for experience, good or bad, but her relentless enthusiasm and super-tough constitution would ensure she'd outlive them all. You've got to be made of stern stuff to live and breathe the jazz life for more than 60 years. Anita O'Day was badass.
Ross Bennett
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 16/12/2009
Further Listening
Anita O'Day - ...Swings Cole Porter with Billy May (Verve, 1959)
Billie Holiday - Lady In Satin (Columbia, 1958)
Blossom Dearie - Teach Me Tonight (El Records, 2009)
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