For all her importance and influence, Anita O'Day seems to be rarely mentioned nowadays - while the holy trinity of Billie-Ella-Sarah is accepted without doubt, this strong-willed, scat virtuoso with a particular, sly sound is more of musician's musician, known and loved by cognoscenti but seldom heard or played anywhere. A 2007. documentary "Anita O'Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer" tried valiantly to put things in perspective and introduce than still-living artist to new generations, but it came too late - O'Day passed away before the movie premiered and I still remember the impression of a frail, old lady being hurt after all these years with stigma "The Jezebel of Jazz" that made her even more unrepentant - since she was publicly tarred and feathered, O'Day decided to continue with smoking and snorting everything that came her way - damage was done anyway and this is all what people wanted to know. Her 1981 memoir "High Times, Hard Times" was heavily edited and tailored almost exclusively on seedy parts of travelling musician's life, pampering to sensationalistic audience but hardly a word mentioned about music. Which is strange because music is the real legacy this wonderful artist left behind.
To my knowledge, Cheryl Bentyne (one of The Manhattan Transfer singers) is the first singer recording full-blown O'Day tribute album - I've heard literary hundreds of albums where singers bow to Billie, occasional respectful nod to Ella or Vaughan, but hardly ever anybody re-visited O'Day who in her time was serious hit-maker and recorded dozen of masterpiece albums for "Verve". So perhaps the main difficulty was selection of material, since O'Day has quite impressive body of work, starting from series of delicious 1940s singles to neck-breaking scat recordings later - Bentyne and her team did their homework seriously and hand-picked little bit of everything, representing the width and depth of O'Day repertoire from various stages. There is a hip swing of 1940s title song, followed by selection of famous ballads and peppered with scat numbers for which O'Day was so celebrated.
Cheryl Bentyne is of course, her own woman and she don't even try to imitate O'Day - her voice is much lighter and gentler than O'Day husky, sly purr - what she does very effectively is to channel the spirit of her strong-willed predecessor and lovingly re-visit all these standards that no one else dares to look at. "Waiter, Make Mine Blues", "Man With A Horn" and of course fast-paced "Tea For Two" (O'Day's trademark) are all here, along with faithful renditions of "Skylark", "Pick Yourself Up" and the most of the music associated with O'Day - its a very enjoyable listening and it will probably turn you on to original recordings.
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