Documentary

We are very pleased and proud to announce the

ANITA O'DAY–THE LIFE OF A JAZZ SINGER

We are very pleased to announce that the film will open in NEW YORK & LOS ANGELES on AUG 15 stayed tuned for more info!

Provincetown Film Festival June 20 and 22. http://www.ptownfilmfest.org/

New Zealand Film Festivals July til Sept. in various cities. For fans down under.

Read praise for Anita O'Day The Life of A Jazz Singer

Variety Oct 22, 2007 by Dennis Harvey

Force of personality and terrific vintage performance clips make a keeper of “Anita O’Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer,” which chronicles the rocky yet royal road of the titular bebop queen. Crisply assembled docu by Robbie Cavolina and Ian McCrudden will face the same uphill battle for theatrical distribution accorded most jazz docs these days. But it’s a natural for further fest play, artscaster sales and DVD distribution wherever music aficionados recall “America’s No. 1 Swing Songstress.”
Many among the celebrity fans, scholars and fellow musicians interviewed here consider the late O’Day one of the “Three Queens” of classic jazz -- notably, the only white one next to late legends Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. She appears healthy but frail in the most recent footage (shot as she approached her 90th birthday), a salty senior who’s survived against considerable odds.These include rape, several abortions, arrests, alcoholism, four failed marriages and 15 years of heroin addiction, though only the latter is explored at length here. She shrugs off such travails as part and parcel of “the jazz life,” with its taxing travel, late hours, party atmosphere and easy access to drugs.O’Day hardly views herself as a victim, however. She’s a tough broad who was long viewed as one of the boys in the overwhelmingly male jazz field. She still talks like a hard-boiled, old-school hipster.Raised in less than genteel circumstances by showbiz parents, she was discovered by Gene Krupa in 1940, scoring hits with his big band and Stan Kenton’s before playing with the smaller combos in which she could let her improv skills fly. She served four months for pot possession and emerged with her allure only enhanced as “the Jezebel of Jazz,” a reputation that was more deserved than her fans knew.Far from ruining her art, however, the drug for a time seemed to be enable it. There’s plentiful footage of O’Day’s dazzling vocal pyrotechnics in TV appearances and a memorable segment of the classic concert pic “Jazz on a Summer’s Day” (1959). O’Day also recorded a series of hit albums for Verve, smack (no pun intended) in the middle of her userdom. It took a near-fatal O.D. to induce her to quit.O’Day relates such true-confession stuff in frank terms. Emphasis here isn’t on lurid biographical details, however, but on the brilliance of the subject’s talent. Her supple, smoky vocals, at times exhilaratingly speedy in bebop phraseology are the heart of this admiring film.Performance clips are variable in terms of image quality, though sound is generally high-grade. Co-directors make excellent use of split-screen effects in moments that measure the wide timespan of O’Day’s career. Tech package is pro.

The Hollywood Reporter

By Sura Wood......November 2, 2007 Bottom Line: Should have a good run on the festival circuit and a second life on television.

MILL VALLEY, Calif. -- Anita O'Day, a singer whose captivating stage presence, rich smoky voice, sophisticated good looks and unique phrasing made her a performer who inspired ecstatic joy and awe, was considered the only white female singer in the same jazz league as Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan, though she was never as well known. That she failed to attain the fame of the aforementioned greats or that her career never reached the same heights was in part because of her being her own worst enemy. This and more is discussed by a roster of record industry professionals, jazz critics and friends who sing her praises in "Anita O'Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer," an engaging if less than revelatory documentary, from Robbie Cavolina (O'Day's former manager) and Ian McCrudden, which covers her seven-decade career and was screened at the Mill Valley Film Festival.For those who read her frank autobiography, "High Times, Hard Times," there's little new here. But the docu, which should have a good run on the festival circuit and a second life on television broadcast, will introduce O'Day to the uninitiated and make fans nostalgic for her smooth, feeling delivery, tough-girl demeanor and technical prowess.O'Day's famous lightning-fast rhythmic delivery was fueled, in no small measure, by bouts of alcoholism and a 20-year heroin addiction that nearly killed her. Most of the money she earned went directly into her arm or into the system of drummer and fellow junkie John Poole, who died from an overdose. The filmmakers incorporate grainy TV kinescopes of interviews with Dick Cavett and David Frost -- she turns around and turns it on when confronted by a judgmental Bryant Gumbel -- testimonials from those who knew her and excerpts from conversations with O'Day, shot in disconcerting extreme close-up shortly before her death last year at 87.

But it's rare clips of her singing solo or along with Stan Kenton, Hoagy Carmichael, Roy Eldridge, Gene Krupa or Louis Armstrong that grab the spotlight. This includes footage of her memorable, show-stopping rendition of "Sweet Georgia Brown" at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival. High as a kite and dressed in a chic, white-fringed black hat and matching dress, she's a sight to behold and a supreme pleasure to hear.

This is the first, definitive documentary on the life of the legendary Jazz vocalist Anita O' Day. In Anita's own words, we hear the tale of a musical genius who broke race barriers and lived her life boldly, unconventionally, without looking back. In candid interviews with the Filmmakers, Anita gives a poignant and often funny account of her jazz oddyssey, that is now well into its seventh decade. With her classic wry wit, Anita speaks with television icons such as Dick Cavett, Bryant Gumble, David Frost and Harry Reasoner to reveal why at 87 she is the last living singer from the Golden Age.

The film showcases rare and never before seen vintage performances and includes interviews from vocalists Annie Ross and Margaret Whiting, Jazz Impresario George Wein, award winning arrangers Bill Holman, Johnny Mandel, Russel Garcia & Buddy Bregman, writer/actor producer John Cameron Mitchell, Joe Franklin and friends from different times in Anita's life.

This fast paced trip with Anita has pictorial elements of jazz album design and the graphic qualities of the 40's 50's and 60's. Including origanal ads, reviews, and numerous never before seen images.

Directed by Robbie Cavolina & Ian McCrudden. Produced by Caroleen Feeney, Nancy Fields O'Connor, Elan Entertainment and Melissa Davis, Robbie Cavolina and Ian McCrudden.