anita o'day homepage

Born Anita Belle Colton in Chicago, Illinois on October 18, 1919. Anita died on Thanksgiving morning November 23, 2006. O’Day got her start as a teen. She eventually changed her name to O’Day and in the late 1930’s began singing in a jazz club called the Off- Beat, a popular hangout for musicians like band leader and drummer Gene Krupa. In 1941 she joined Krupa’s band, and a few weeks later Krupa hired trumpeter Roy Eldridge. O’Day and Eldridge had great chemistry on stage and their duet “Let Me Off Uptown” became a million-dollar-seller, boosting the popularity of the Krupa band. Also that year, “Down Beat” magazine named O’Day “New Star of the Year” and, in 1942, she was selected as one of the top five big band singers.

After her stint with, Krupa, O’Day joined Stan Kenton's band. She left the band after a year and returned to Krupa. Singer Jackie Cain remembers the first time she saw O’Day with the Krupa band. “I was really impressed,” she recalls, “She (O’Day) sang with a jazz feel, and that was kind of fresh and new at the time.” Later, O’Day joined Stan Kenton’s band with whom she cut an album that featured the hit tune “And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine”

In the late’40s, O’Day struck out on her own. She teamed up with drummer John Poole, with whom she played for the next 32 years. Her album “Anita”, which she recorded on producer Norman Granz’s new Verve label, elevated her career to new heights. She began performing in festivals and concerts with such illustrious musicians as Louis Armstrong, Dinah Washington, Georg Shearing and Thelonious Monk. O’Day also appeared in the documentary filmed at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1958 called “Jazz on a Summer Day”, which made her an international star.

Throughout the ‘60s Anita continued to tour and record while addicted to heroin and in 1969 she nearly died from an overdose. O’Day eventually beat her addiction and returned to work. In 1981 she published her autobiography “High Times, Hard Times” which, among other things, talked candidly about her drug addiction. More biographical information reprinted with permission from http://www.npr.org

ANITA O'DAY–THE LIFE OF A JAZZ SINGER

2008 Satellite Award Winner - Best Documentary -International Press Academy

Anita O'Day Live in Hollywood 2001

HIGH TIMES HARD TIMES Read her sizzling autobiography!!!! NY Times Best Seller.

WE HAVE NUMEROUS COPIES IN STOCK. THEY ARE $20 PLUS SHIPPING ($5. for priority in the US. $10 for outside the US)

Anita O'Day Live in Tokyo 1963 DVD-video and audio Cd in stores NOW. Go to the performance page and watch clips. This is Vintage Anita doing a live concert for Japanese TV. IT IS FLAWLESS AND JUST MAGNIFICENT!!!!

Anita's entire VERVE, Sony, and Kayo catalogs are available on iTunes and all digital retail as well as Amazon.com and most other retailers world-wide.

We ask that you tell your friends about Anita, turn on a friend to Anita's legacy and you ARE a friend! Anita's Cd's are the GREAT gifts.

Thank you for so many kind notes.

WE HAVE NUMEROUS COPIES IN STOCK. THEY ARE $20 PLUS SHIPPING ($5. for priority in the US. $10 for outside the US)

e-mail Robbie to place order or paypal us at: info@kayostereophonic.com

Don't buy bootlegs! Buy Kayo, Buy Verve, Capital-EMI, Sony, Mosaic and Pablo and all of Anita's releases out of Japan, especially Verve Japan are also legit. So Buy legit so that artists see payments. Bootlegs steal the music and don't the pay artists! No joke. And they don't compare to the classic records that are released legit. The album covers shown above reflect available CD's- There are many many more not shown because they are either bootlegs or no longer in-print