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Requiem for a Jazz Singer and Survivor
Requiem for a Jazz Singer and Survivor
Date Posted: July 08 2009
Written By: Paul Marinaro
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Anita O’Day has been given her proper due…and it’s about time. After having a career that spanned well over six decades (one that far outlasted those of nearly all her peers), a career that was filled with more twists and turns than a well crafted novel and that created a massive output of prolific recordings, one would think that there would be no shortage of books, movies, and documentaries about the singer. Yet, until the documentary Anita O’Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer was completed shortly after death in 2007, there had been nothing definitive chronicling the jazz legend. After a successful run in theaters throughout 2008, this award-winning documentary comes to DVD in July.
Considered to be one among just a handful of great jazz singers, Anita’s life and career was documented once before in her 1980 book, High Times, Hard Times, which set off a series of television interviews reminding people who she was and, in turn, helped to resurrect her career in America. Although much talk surfaced throughout the years about a feature film based on the book, this documentary (arriving twenty-seven years later) is probably as close as we’re going to get for a while.
The documentary strives to achieve the difficult task of being informative without being erudite, telling both her story as a musical genius and as a survivor, and appealing to both diehard as well as novice fans. It succeeds brilliantly. Chock-full of rarely-if-ever seen interviews, vintage photos and colorful graphics, the DVD package maintains a look reminiscent of forties and fifties jazz albums, and masterfully presents an entertaining and enlightening, fast-paced trip of her life. Using well-edited and carefully placed interviews rather than a narrator, co-directors Robbie Cavolina and Ian McCrudden allow Anita to tell her own story, buttressed with accounts from friends and peers.
The candid interviews, conducted by such television icons as David Frost, Bryant Gumble, Dick Cavett, Tom Snyder and Harry Reasoner, are filled with examples of Anita’s wit and distinct personality and help the film to mirror that tone in its exposition. Actually, one of the film’s greatest successes is how well it captures Anita.
The healthy dose of live performance clips and interviews strategically placed throughout the film are fine testaments to her skills, capturing her indomitable spirit, her “hip kitty” persona, as well as her often-difficult disposition. Among the rarest and most entertaining clips is a slightly blurred but highly welcome late-fifties live television appearance in which Anita tries to spontaneously recreate her rendition of “Body and Soul” with an unprepared trio. In it, she is clearly unhappy with the pianist, who struggles to follow her inventive approach to the song’s melody. By the end of the bridge they once again find each other, but not before she rolls her eyes and utters, “For godsakes…this is all for the pianist,” then sarcastically claims, “This is a party," and proceeds to plow full speed ahead in an attempt to lose them even further.
The filmmakers wisely use many split-screen techniques, most effectively during a live clip of Anita singing “Travelin’ Light” (her rendition perhaps being rivaled only by Billie Holiday’s). While the masterful performance of Anita plays on, her former manager Maynard Sloate gives us anecdotes of her financial and personal woes. The technique works well here, as Sloate’s interview is interspersed and timed in such a way that it does not detract from the performance.
As for the many “talking heads” throughout the film, most provide welcome insight and are logical inclusions. There is the occasional misfire, however, such as the unlikely (and unwelcome) appearance of actor/writer/director John Cameron Mitchell. His comments (which unfortunately appear during several brilliant live performances) are so banal and misinformed the viewer is left to imagine that perhaps Anita’s bookie or mechanic would have had something more interesting to say. His appearance, though distracting, is but only a small misstep.
A healthy balance of her personal and professional life is maintained throughout, and while her difficulties with drugs and alcohol are discussed, they are never over-sensationalized and much more attention is given to her contributions to jazz. Singers Margaret Whiting and Annie Ross are on hand and are welcome additions, offering several touching moments. Also of interest are the comments provided by some of her many arrangers and fellow musicians.
From her childhood through her final recording, released in 2006, her life unfolds in a fascinating manner––detailed, yet never plodding; heartfelt, but never cloying; tragic, yet never maudlin. By the film’s end, viewer is amazed by the artist, charmed by the hipster, and inspired by the survivor. Some were critical of her manager for taking the frail octogenarian on a tour of Europe or of his placing her in the studio once again. These skeptics, however, need only see the footage of a vibrant and happy Anita greeting fans in London or mugging for the camera in the streets of Paris; or the footage of her in the studio at age eighty-five, delivering a world-weary but tender reading of “The Nearness of You.” For in Anita’s own words, “It’s a whole different world when the music stops.”
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