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WFIU Presents
Anita O’Day: Remembering the
Boogie Ride
O’Day began her career as a dancer in Depression walkathons,
then moved on to the 1940s world of big-band singing, where she
became a star in Gene Krupa’s orchestra, scoring a smash hit
with the song “Let Me Off Uptown” (which also earned notoriety
in then-segregated America for its vocal wordplay between the white
O’Day and black trumpeter Roy Eldridge). She went on to record
other swing-era hits with Krupa and Stan Kenton and made a stunning
series of small-group and big-band albums for jazz impresario Norman
Granz in the 1950s. Her vo-cool style influenced a whole school
of singers that included June Christy and Chris Connor. Drug busts
and a long-running heroin addiction darkened O’Day’s image,
leading the press to dub her “the Jezebel of Jazz.” Her
1981 autobiography, High Times Hard Times, details her personal
struggles and her overwhelming love of music.
(Note: the Frank Sinatra V-disc program scheduled for this week will be broadcast on Friday, January 5 instead.)
WFIU |
This
week on Afterglow we note the passing of a legendary jazz
vocalist, Anita O’Day, who died on Thanksgiving Day 2006 at
the age of 87. 
Passionate and hard-living even as she performed into her final
years, O’Day is routinely ranked among the all-time greats
of vocal jazz. In this program we’ll hear many of her classic
recordings from the 1940s and 50s, as well as excerpts from an interview
I did with her in 2003. “Anita O’Day: Remembering the
Boogie Ride” airs Friday, December 1 at 10:05 EST on WFIU.