A spirited appreciation and colourful portrait of the great jazz singer and queen of 50s cool. Excellent clips, archived interviews and unseen footage.
Screened as part of NZIFF 2008
Anita O'Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer 2007
Anita O'Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer delivers a spirited appreciation and colourful portrait of the great jazz singer and queen of 50s cool. Excellent clips that draw on a fat scrapbook of performances and archived interviews with the singer are juxtaposed with interesting testimony from other singers and artists and new footage of O'Day towards the end of her life (she died in November 2006). Her honesty still clears the air, showing up several decades' worth of TV interviewers for the snide and smarmy gossip merchants they were. She is forthright about her failures in marriage and her 15-year drug habit, though how anyone strung out on heroin could scat with her brilliance and speed remains a feat beyond mortal comprehension. Directors Robbie Cavolina and Ian McCrudden adore their subject and make it perfectly clear why we should too: one bravura sequence intercuts five completely different versions of the same song to dazzling effect. — BG