JAZZ SPOTLIGHT
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* * * ANITA O’DAY “Rules of the Road” Pablo
After many years confined mainly to small-group sessions on independent labels, O’Day returns to the major leagues on a big-band date with arranger Buddy Bragman, who worked with her in the 1950s and here leads what is in fact Jack Sheldon’s L.A. orchestra.
O’Day, who will be 74 Monday, is still in possession of the virtues that established her on records with Gene Krupa’s band in 1941: a natural sense of jazz phrasing, occasional and well-placed melisma (listen to “Didn’t We”) and her own immediately identifiable sound.
Balanced against this is a problem that has rarely been absent: shakiness of intonation.
Longtime O’Day admirers, and probably others, will forgive these occasional lapses, pointing to the interesting choice of songs and many interludes by the band or by soloists (Pete Christlieb on tenor, Andy Martin on trombone and trumpeter Sheldon, who also shares the vocal honors with her on “I Told Ya I Love Ya, Now Get Out!”).
After 52 years, O’Day certainly knows the rules of the vocal road.
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