Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Medley: (a) `S Wonderful (b) They Can't Take That Away From Me from Anita Sings The Most
2. Tenderly from Anita Sings The Most
3. Old Devil Moon from Anita Sings The Most
4. Love Me Or Leave Me from Anita Sings The Most
5. We'll Be Together Again from Anita Sings The Most
6. Stella By Starlight from Anita Sings The Most
7. Taking A Chance On Love from Anita Sings The Most
8. Them There Eyes from Anita Sings The Most
9. I've Got The World On A String from Anita Sings The Most
10. You Turned The Tables On Me from Anita Sings The Most
11. Bewitched, Bothered And Bewildered from Anita Sings The Most
12. Rock `N' Roll Blues from The Lady Is A Tramp
13. Love For Sale from The Lady Is A Tramp
14. Lullaby Of The Leaves from The Lady Is A Tramp
15. Lover Come Back To Me from The Lady Is A Tramp
16. No Soap, No Hope Blues from The Lady Is A Tramp
17. Speak Low from The Lady Is A Tramp
18. Pagan Love Song from The Lady Is A Tramp
19. Ain't This A Wonderful Day from The Lady Is A Tramp
20. Somebody's Cryin' from The Lady Is A Tramp
21. Vaya Con Dios from The Lady Is A Tramp
22. The Lady Is A Tramp from The Lady Is A Tramp
23. Strawberry Moon from The Lady Is A Tramp

Disc 2:

1. Just One Of Those Things from An Evening With Anita O'Day
2. The Gypsy In My Soul from An Evening With Anita O'Day
3. The Man I Love from An Evening With Anita O'Day
4. Frankie And Johnny from An Evening With Anita O'Day
5. Anita's Blues from An Evening With Anita O'Day
6. I Cover The Waterfront from An Evening With Anita O'Day
7. You're Getting To Be A Habit With Me from An Evening With Anita O'Day
8. From This Moment On from An Evening With Anita O'Day
9. You Don't Know What Love Is from An Evening With Anita O'Day
10. Medley: (a) There Will Never Be Another You (b)Just Friends from An Evening With Anita O'Day
11. I Didn't Know What Time It Was from An Evening With Anita O'Day
12. Let's Fall In Love from An Evening With Anita O'Day
13. You're The Top from Anita
14. Honeysuckle Rose from Anita
15. A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square from Anita
16. Who Cares? from Anita
17. I Can't Get Started from Anita
18. Fine And Dandy from Anita
19. As Long As I Live from Anita
20. No Moon At All from Anita
21. Time After Time from Anita
22. I'll See You In My Dreams from Anita
23. I Fall In Love Too Easily from Anita
24. Beautiful Love from Anita

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3872 in Music
• Released on: 2008-09-29
• Number of discs: 1

Album Description
What a difference O'Day makes!!
AVID Jazz here presents four classic Anita O'Day albums on a finely re-mastered and low priced double CD. `Anita Sings The Most', `The Lady Is A Tramp', `An Evening With Anita O'Day' and `Anita'.
Born in Chicago, Anita O'Day cut her musical teeth in the 1940's playing with the Gene Krupa Band and the Stan Kenton Band during which time she had her first widespread successes with `And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine' and `Tampico' which allowed her to head out on her own as a single act.
Using a wide range of musical accompanists including the Oscar Peterson Trio, Barney Kessel Jimmy Rowles, Tal Farlow and Roy Eldridge, our four classic albums highlight a unique singing talent that put Anita up there with Billie, Ella and Mildred Bailey and went on to influence such great singers as June Christy and Chris Connor.
All four albums have been digitally re-mastered for probably the finest sound quality ever!

Customer Reviews

the buy of a lifetime ANITA SWINGS THE MOST
This 4-albums-in-two-cds package was one of the best buys in my life...
I got it on UK amazon for the price smaller than the price of ANY of these single albums!

Starting with "Anita sings the most", I can say that it's no wonder that album is often mentioned as one of the best in Anita O'Day's rich and long career; working beautifully with Oscar Peterson classic trio (Herb Ellis-g, Ray Brown-b) plus John Pool on drums, Anita is equally impressive in slower tempos and in her trademark neck-breaking hyper-swinging elloquence...

One of the strength's of this magnificent singer is a strong individuality, ability to make every song a part of her hip and sometimes even sarcastic worldview... Although at first her style might remind you of Ella Fitzgerald, the liberties she takes with tempo and rhythm actually make her closer to Billie Holiday or Betty Carter, the mood she projects with her timbre makes her a distant cousin of Carmen McRae but, make no mistake, she is Anita O'Day, the one and only... With the nifty and versatile fingers of Oscar and the crew behind her, this album shouldn't have gone wrong and I feel it fullfiled its magnificent potential.
The second album "The Lady is a Tramp" is more commercially oriented; with some jazz tracks but also with very straightforward (dull) "Vaya con Dios" and quite insulting "Rock 'N' Blues" (that is, insulting to this jazz fan who couldn't believe to what lowsy use Anita and Roy Eldridge were put). That album (second part of the first CDs) has three arrangers (Ralph Burns and Roy Kral both of whom also play the piano on their respective tracks, and Larry Russell), even more musicians line-ups and no concept; it's quite anti-climactic after "Anita Sings the Most"...

However, the second CD is first class Anita all the way. The first brilliant album "An Evening with Anita O'Day" shows her working beautiful with one compact trio and two equally effective quartets, the format she often excelled in (although in the beginning of her carreer she was best known as an unorthodox big band singer):
- Arnold Ross-p, Barney Kessel-g, Monty Budwig-b, Jackie Mills-dm
- Bud Lavin-p, M. Budwig-b, John Poole-dm
- Jimmie Rowles-p, Tal Farlow-g, Leroy Vinnegar-b, Larry Bunker-dm.
She's magnificent on that album, at times ironic (Anita's Blues), at times creative beyond words ("The Man I love"), at times simply brilliant ("Frankie and Johnny", "I didn't know what time it was", "I cover the waterfront"...)...

The fourth and final album (simply called "Anita"), arranged by Buddy Bregman, presents Anita with only a slightly less swinging, but still nice company, with larger orchestra including nice brass (4 trombones - Milt Bernhart, Lloyd Ulyate,Joe Howard, Si Zentner) and, thankfully, quite unobtrusive and tastily arranged strings, plus Corky Hale on harp...
On this album Paul Smith plays piano and celeste, there are also Barney Kessel-g,Joe Mondragon-b, Alvin Stoller-dm
Starting with Cole Porter's "You're the top" (with slightly updated lyrics), Anita works through some well known songs ("Honeysuckle Rose", "A Nightingal Sang in Berkeley Square"...), giving them lovely, although not always equaly chance taking treatment ....

I've read somewhere that Anita thought Norman Granz was pushing Ella Fitzgerald too much; if it's true (and it seems to be), it's a pitty since she is Ella's equal (if not superior), but some claim that Anita's demanding character and serious drug habit prevented her from getting some gigs that Ella landed and professionally handled...
Nevertheless, Anita has still left us a nice recorded legacy as well and this edition brings us three (out of four) albums that must be near or at the peak of that legacy...

Wonderful surprise
Well, I like a lot Frank Sinatra's way of singing and finding these excellent recordings allowed me to meet his alter ego among female vocalists. Anita O'Day phrasing is very intelligent and one remains under the spell of her delivery throughout this sensational presentation of her talent. Highly recommended.