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Anita O'Day


jazz1

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I am busy discovering Anita O'Day and enjoying every minutes.

I bought 3 cds, "Sings the most" Sings the winners" and the cd with arrangements by Jimmy Guiffre.

I cannot afford the Mosaic box, so what's next??

Your input is required urgently I am hooked.

"My heart belongs to Daddy" on the Guiffre set just sounds so sexy woww!!

:wub:

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In addition to those listed above, the Cole Porter record she did with Billy May... I believe it's called SWINGS COLE PORTER. As well as the other record she did with May, called SWINGS RODGERS AND HART.

A fave of mine that's been re-issued only in Japan (but is on the Mosaic set) is O'Day's Billie Holiday tribute, TRAVLIN' LIGHT.

Edited by ghost of miles
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In addition to those listed above, the Cole Porter record she did with Billy May... I believe it's called SWINGS COLE PORTER. As well as the other record she did with May, called SWINGS RODGERS AND HART.

A fave of mine that's been re-issued only in Japan (but is on the Mosaic set) is O'Day's Billie Holiday tribute, TRAVLIN' LIGHT.

There was a CD reissue of those two Anita O'Day albums (Cole Porter and Rodgers & Hart) on a single CD from Verve.

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But, buy the Mosaic when you can-it really showcases her when her voice was its most vibrant.

Took the plunge and bought the Mosaic box, 9 cds over 700 minutes of music.

I've been listening to most of it sampling the different periods

I must admit that the collections contains lots of highs, but quite a few lows.

On the early discs Anita's pitch could be way off, and her scatting sounded hesitant.

I did not read all the details yet, but it is quite obvious that from disc no 3

the improvements in her singing are dramatic.

On disc no 1 the recording quality is very variable from good to very poor which is not the norm for Mosaic.

Was it a good buy??? Yes for the completist and collectors, but if one just wants to hear the best of Anita, 3 or 4 of her best cds will suffice.

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I have to step in and say I completely disagree with jazz1. I consider the O'Day Mosaic to be excellent from start to finish, and as far as I'm concerned, the set concentrates on her greatest work. Although it would certainly be a mistake to miss the disc with Gene Krupa and Roy Eldridge!

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I have to step in and say I completely disagree with jazz1. I consider the O'Day Mosaic to be excellent from start to finish,

I do not disagree that it is a good set, all I am saying that they are some low points and high points as with every artist.

There is no doubt that on some tracks Anita 's pitch left a lot to be desired.

I also owned "Sings the winners" "Sings the most" "Cool Heat" and a few others and basically I did not discover more "great stuff" on the Mosaic set.

And the fact remains that some of the recordings sound quality is problematic on some tracks

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  • 5 years later...

I absolutely adore and bless that Mosaic box. I started listening to her music here.

I'd reccomend any new listener to give a look to her performance in Jazz On A SUmmer's Day. DVD apart you easily find those eight minutes on YouTube, splitted or together. She gives awesome and deep of feeling versions of Sweet Georgia Brown and Tea For Two. She plays fast as the wind, with magical understatement as much as she makes pauses speak a minute before...

Generally I tried and tempt new listeners with her "Time For Two. Anita O'day With Cal Tjader" in the last Mosaic cd; sometimes paired in the same cd with Carmen McRae's equally latin-esqe and Tjaderized "Heat Wave".

The pairing with The Master means a lot how much I consider O'Day, I believe.

Waiting for her new DVD documentary. I already saw it at summer film festival and find it pretty good.

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  • 7 months later...

Anita at her loveliest best...

Body and Soul

Let's Fall in Love

from the Art Ford's Jazz Party in 1958 with Marty Napoleon on piano, Mundell Lowe on guitar, Vinnie Burke on bass and Zutty Singleton at the drums!

Both videos are included in the DVD Anita O'Day's Life of a Jazz Singer.

excellent! merci for posting!

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Is it me, or are the vocals in At Mister Kelley's all on one channel?

And how 'bout that lil intro to But Not for Me!

That's the verse of the song...

I have a more recent reissue of the Mister Kelly's set paird with Sings the Winners (because it was the only way to get this music). One song, Tea for Two, I had allready on a Vervesampler. On that sampler it had a small spoken outro by O'Day over the music. Something like; "thank you don't go away", but it's not on my complete album. Some of the other songs do have a similar spoken intro or outro... So was this set originally released as a coplete set with introducion's etc?

Btw I Love those livesets recorded at Mister Kelly's (Vaughan, Fitzgerald, Della Reese)

j.

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