Indestructible!

Indestructible: Incapable of being destroyed, ruined or rendered ineffective

There is really no other word to describe Anita O’Day. Her legacy in the world of music goes back to the mid-30s as a singing-dance competitor in the popular walkathons of the day—that is, until a truant officer returned her to school. When asked her name, she answered “O’Day,”pig Latin for dough. Which she hoped to make a bunch of. She was soon discovered by a club owner in Chicago, and within a year destiny would guide her right to the top as the lead singer for the Gene Krupa Orchestra. Anita brought to the big band her own swinging style. She had no use for gowns; she was a member of the band who’s instrument was her voice, so she donned the same uniform that the other band members wore—a suit. She stayed with Krupa’s outfit for five years, then after one year with Stan Kenton, scoring numerous hits for both. She began her solo career in 1947. It continues today. Anita called herself a personality singer, but somewhere along the line the moniker changed to jazz singer. She swears that she is just a “song stylist.” There are many explanations for this. Anita can improvise melodies as if they were written for her, she need to tell a story, and of course, her innate ability to swing. Her legendary 10-year stint with Verve Records not only produced the very first Verve release Anita, but also numerous recordings highlighting the best arrangers and best songs from the Great American Songbook, to make a unparalleled body of work. At the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, she sings, scats and mesmerizes her audience from complacency to standing and cheering with her own version of “Sweet Georgia Brown,” which was filmed by Bert Stern released as Jazz on A Summer’s Day. Her performance with “the big hat and feathers,” as Anita puts it, is a highlight and a must-see of this era. On New Year’s Eve in 1963 she performed live on television in Tokyo, with a full orchestra. It is a legendary performance. Anita’s career also includes arrests, long-term drug and alcohol addiction, jail time, highs and lows so extreme that only Dickens or Shakespeare could have conjured them up. In 1983, she penned her story, High Times Hard Times, with the assistance of veteran biographer George Eels. It was a New York Times Most Notable Best Seller.

Anita has dedicated her life to music and only music. At the tender age of 80, after recovering from many difficulties, including a fall, alcohol-related injuries, and three years of hospitals and rehabs, she asked, “When are we going to make a new record?” Coming thirteen years since her last record, this collection has been five years in the making . Choosing songs that she had not recorded (except for “Them There Eyes” and “Is You Is,” which are both inextricably linked to Anita), was not an easy task. “A Slip of the Lip” is dedicated to a group of 100 swing dancers who pushed chairs and tables aside during a performance in Los Angeles in 2003 and made that evening unforgettable. “All of Me” is dedicated to Roy Eldridge, who played at Anita’s side for decades; it is an interpretation of his arrangement from his Little Jazz record. Anita chose “Pennies From Heaven” because she has a penchant for finding lucky pennies. “Blue Skies” was a song that I asked her to sing when we started to work together. She refused “NO WAY! I choose my own tunes.” I begged. She complied. To a standing ovation every time. “This Can’t Be Love” and “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” were in from the start as they afforded Anita room to improvise. Charlie Parker’s “My Little Suede Shoes” is a song that we just love to listen to, the band was so exceptional that we wanted to give them a tune to jam to and do they ever! “Gimme a Pigfoot” is tongue-in-cheek in view of Anita’s former vices and piano players. You might notice that some of the names were changed as we personalized the lyric. “The Nearness of You” was the last song recorded. We received a video of Anita singing this with Hoagy Carmichael and Louis Armstrong on a television show in the late 50s. She watched it and asked, “Did I ever record that? The answer is yes, now. We found players who could swing, improvise, accompany and integrate into Anita’s complicated vocal and timing choices. You can’t find better musicians than those on this recording. The guys gave all they had and were truly dedicated to creating a body of work that is truly jazz. We used a studio that records to analogue tape using vintage tube mics. This was essential in capturing the sound that made the great jazz records great, rather than trying to reproduce “the sound” using computers. The recordings were made between February 2004 and November 2006, and was mixed and mastered soon after Anita’s 86th birthday. Indestructible! Anita O’Day is the result. We wanted to make a record that swings, that challenges the notion of what jazz is, and that shows that the originators of the art form are still out there defining it or as Anita puts it, “still swinging.”

-Producer's notes