Good Lord, I love Anita O'Day. One of the greatest jazz artists this country has ever seen--nearly Ella's equal as a scat-singer, but with a richer emotional palette (and a helluva back story), and unique in her ability to combine technical artistry with lyric interpretation. Two exhibits for the prosecution: Sweet Georgia Brown and Tea for Two, both from the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival. (Thanks to YouTube user jfhancock. And if you can explain the rationale for the extensive crowd shots when Anita was onstage looking like this, I'd be grateful.)
And as long as I have the space, here are MP3s of the audio tracks: Sweet Georgia Brown and Tea for Two.
11 Responses
This is from Jazz On A Summer's Day, the Bert Stern film. The whole movie is full of crowd shots, as well as scenes from around the town -- parades, people drinking beer, and quite a few boats (the America's Cup was held there at the same time as the jazzfest). There's also some pretty good Monk footage (despite a radio transmission during one of his solos!), excellent sets from Louis Armstrong and Mahalia Jackson, one of the great Dinah Washington moments of all time (during the vibes solo), and unbelievably, Chuck Berry backed by jazz musicians (clarinet solo anyone?). You really owe it to yourself, Ed, to seek this one out.
Thanks for the heads-up, Paul--it's in my Netflix queue (although it's a long list at the moment.) Fascinating set of comments by Netflix users--most people loved it as a '50s time capsule and a rare chance to see these performers in action, but a few felt that the poor sound quality and the audience footage were distracting. It sounds as though the Anita O'Day clips above may be the highlights--great performances and the sound's not bad.
And you've been highlighting some great music videos and other performance footage at The View from Fort Miley--really good stuff there.
Thanks for your kind words.... Here's Dinah, wearing some sort of baggy dress that was apparently popular for about five minutes in the summer of 1958, delivering the goods.
Wow, that dress is...interesting. (The very odd closeup shots of that bow-thingy across her thighs don't help matters.) But she sounds great, and I love how she lends a hand on the vibe solo. Could be Max Roach on drums, too.
Wonderful. I'm embarrassed to say I've never heard Anita O'Day before. Can you believe it? Thanks. I will have to rectify this gap in my jazz knowledge. I'm loving what I've heard so far.
As for Dinah's dress, I'll say something like my mother would say when she saw a baby that only a mother could be proud of ("Oh my, what a healthy baby," she'd say), well, that dress sure does cover her, doesn't it. But since it was a fashion of a very tiny moment and she's Dinah, after all, it must be forgiven.
PS I didn't know the afro was already making it's entry by the 50's. I'd thought it was more the 60's when it became popular. Or maybe La Dinah was just a truly fashion forward icon.
I was thinking the same thing about Dinah's little 'fro. I'm not sure if she was ahead of the times, or if I just don't know those times as well as I thought I did, but she looked great. Ah, except for the dress--well, the less said the better.
And if you haven't listened to Anita before, you're in for a treat. Some great discs to start with are "Anita Sings the Most," and "Pick Yourself Up." There's also a 4-disc set called "Young Anita" that's amazing--and you can get it for $16 used on Amazon.
i was searching for some info about anita o'day and your site cropped up; i have just bought the jazz on a summer's day dvd, having been a fan of the film since forever; take NO notice of comments about poor sound quality, distracting audience shots - this film is FAB. who would we have today at such a festival, how could there be so many geniuses gathered together at one place and one time? amazing. not to mention the whole social situation - the 1950s still being a time of segregation and there was everyone, if not quite mixed up, well, next to one another. the back story to the making of the movie as told by bert stern is also fascinating - i thought the girl reading camille was a bit too good to be true. and anita was apparently stoned at her appearance - she sure travelled a long way to join up with the moral majority.
now can anyone out there help me with my quest - i am searching for an essay on anita o'day's scatting at the festival on the day?
Thanks, baybabz--great background info, and I'll look forward to seeing the whole thing someday soon.
Ed
Have to say thanks, Ed, for hipping me to Anita O'day-like Mr. Florence I haven't heard her much, embarrassing in that I've always lived in the bay area where there is so much great jazz to be heard. I came to jazz late, tho, from the sixties "San Francisco sound", a little-commented upon phenomenon that I swear bore more than a little resemblance to jazz, with its furious improvisation and experimentation. Anyway, I followed your link to that unspeakably sublime performance at Newport and it just K.O'd me! I downloaded 4 albums and both movies immediately, and I have to agree with Mr. Wein, that's gotta be the best jazz vocal performance ever recorded. My favorite singer used to be Sarah Vaughan, but she's gonna have to move over, I guess I've got two favorites now.
I'm thrilled to hear that, Bruce. Anita's one of my favorite singers ever, and she deserves to be heard more widely these days. A 4-CD box set called "Young Anita" is just $13 used on Amazon these days, and it's a great introduction to her early work.
Even though this article appeared some time ago, I'm glad to find one where the "crowd issue" is addressed. Anita O'Day is probably my very favorite vocalist of any genre, and I hate seeing so many bored and uninterested faces on screen during her performance!
If you look closely at the few shots that show people actually "boppin' to the rhythm", few appear to be even close in time to what's on the sound track. Even if you allow for some mis-sync between audio and video, it still doesn't look like they're hearing the same music.
My theory is that in using multiple cameras, they didn't bother to "time" each camera to the audio except for those that were actually following the action on stage, and so didn't have to make sure each audience snippet was in sync with the performers on stage. That left them free to go even further, and use audience footage that was perhaps completely unrelated to the act onstage at the time--maybe even using footage that was shot during breaks, or between songs. There were even shots of people seeming to react to something that passed very quickly, quickly enough to elicit a single clap of the hands, for instance, when nothing unusual was occurring on the soundtrack.
I've looked especially close at the audience footage during Anita's performance, just because I've played that section so many times. And sure, any particular audience clip could be reconciled with the soundtrack by simply calling the apparent discrepancies a fluke,or saying the audience was truly bored, but with hardly any given combination of audience and soundtrack that we see making sense, using unrelated audience clips for the most part is the only thing that does make sense to me.
To be fair to Bert Stern, he was primarily a (very good) still photographer. It may be that he just didn't think audiences of the time were sophisticated enough to pick up on such detail, and wanted someplace to throw in all those interesting crowd shots (after all, what's more interesting--people clapping and having a good time like any other concert audience, or a young lady chewing her ice cream bar like it was a leathery bite of overcooked steak?).
Ron Hildebrand