Trivia

Fought off a severe heroin addiction during the 1960s and at one time nearly died. She successfully recovered and returned to music in the next decade.

Legendary jazz artist performed at local Chicago clubs before getting her big break with Gene Krupa's band in 1941. Her first big hit was "Let Me Off Uptown".

Although her funeral service was held at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, she was not laid to rest there, despite rumors to the contrary. Sshe was cremated, and her ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean off the main pier in Santa Monica, CA.

Jazz singer

Associated during the WWII years on as a band singer for Gene Krupa's band, her hit "Let Me Off Uptown" was a million-seller. "Down Beat" magazine named her "New Star of the Year" in 1942. With Stan Kenton's band, she recorded the hit "And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine".

Her idol was Billie Holiday.

Recorded 17 albums with Verve Records over a two-decade period.

Her last CD "Indestructible!" was released in 2006.

Release of her autobiography, "High Times, Hard Times". (1981)

Still singing at age 83, she booked a gig at the Cinegrill in Hollywood.

Teamed in the 1950s with drummer John Poole; they remained together for 32 years.

Received the American Jazz Masters Award in 1997.

Impoverished and largely abandoned in childhood, became a marathon dancer and changed surname from Colton to O'Day, pig Latin for "dough", slang for "money".

She was married in her early years to musician Don Carter and golfer and businessman Carl Hoff. The marriage to Carter was annulled, and the marriage to Hoff ended in divorce.

O'Day spoke candidly about her drug addiction in her 1981 memoir High Times, Hard Times, which led to a string of TV appearances on 60 Minutes, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, The Today Show with Bryant Gumbel, The Dick Cavett Show, Over Easy with Hugh Downs, The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder, and several others.

When she was in good voice she could stretch long notes with strong crescendos and a telescoping vibrato, e.g. her live version of "Sweet Georgia Brown" at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, captured in Bert Stern's film Jazz on a Summer's Day.

She always maintained that the accidental excision of her uvula during a childhood tonsillectomy left her incapable of vibrato, and unable to maintain long phrases. That botched operation, she claimed, forced her to develop a more percussive style based on short notes and rhythmic drive.

As a live performer, O'Day began performing in festivals and concerts with musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Oscar Peterson, Dinah Washington, George Shearing, Cal Tjader and Thelonious Monk.

She appeared in the documentary Jazz on a Summer's Day, filmed at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, which increased her popularity. She admitted later that she was probably high on heroin during the concert.

It's hard to sum up a song stylist as unique as O'Day, but the title of her 1959 Verve album does it pretty well: Cool Heat.

Late in 1959, she toured Europe with Benny Goodman to great personal acclaim. O'Day wrote in her 1981 autobiography that when Goodman's attempts to upstage her failed to diminish the audience's enthusiasm, he cut all but two of her numbers from the show.

In 2005, her version of the standard "Sing, Sing, Sing" was remixed by RSL and was included in the compilation album Verve Remixed 3.

She recorded infrequently after the expiration of her Verve contract in 1962, and her career seemed over when she nearly died of a heroin overdose in 1968. During this time, her working trio included Chicagoan George Finley on drums, father of performance artist Karen Finley. After kicking the habit, she made a comeback at the 1970 Berlin Jazz Festival.

She toured as a solo artist and appeared on such TV specials as the Timex All-Star Jazz Show and The Swingin' Years hosted by Ronald Reagan.

O'Day made a cameo appearance in The Gene Krupa Story, singing "Memories of You".

Her final album of the 50's decade paired her up with the swingin' arranger Billy May, who had worked with Charlie Barnet's orchestra and with Frank Sinatra on the album Come Fly With Me. May had as much exciting energy as O'Day, so they were a perfect match. Their album together was called Anita O'Day Swings Cole Porter With Billy May. The songs of Cole Porter had always been favorites of jazz players like Charlie Parker to song balladeers like Frank Sinatra, so it makes perfect sense that Anita O'Day would give these songs her own idiosyncratic treatment.

O'Day cited Martha Raye as the primary influence on her vocal style, also expressing admiration for Mildred Bailey, Ella Fitzgerald, and Billie Holiday.

The feature-length documentary Anita O'Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer, directed by Robbie Cavolina and Ian McCrudden, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 30, 2007.

She adopted the pseudonym "O'Day" when she was still a teenager performing at dance marathons. She chose it because "O'Day" was Pig Latin for "dough," and Anita was all about earning some dough.

Anita O'Day was a hard-drinking, hard-swinging singer who could turn a song into pure jazz like no other.

She first established herself as an exciting big band singer for Gene Krupa and Stan Kenton in the 1940s, standing out by not simply becoming a mere "canary," a girl singer at the front of the stage. Anita O'Day insisted on being a full-fledged member of the band. Not only did she perform in the band's uniform, but she could also swing and improvise as well as anyone in the horn section.

Following a life-threatening fall down a staircase at the end of 1996, she made a comeback in 1999, resuming her career with the help of long-time manager Alan Eichler.

In November 1980, she was a headliner along with Clark Terry, Lionel Hampton and Ramsey Lewis, during the opening two-week ceremony performances celebrating the short-lived resurgence of the Blue Note Lounge at the Marriott O'Hare Hotel near Chicago.

She was the favorite singer of Lynn Bari who collected several of her albums.

One of her better known late-career audio performances is "Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby", which opens the film Shortbus (2006) by John Cameron Mitchell.