O’Day Makes a Promising Return to Singing

A year ago, jazz singer Anita O’Day was seriously ill from the complications of pneumonia and blood poisoning. Her prognosis for survival was uncertain, a return to performing almost unthinkable. At 78, she appeared to have reached the end of a high-visibility, five-decades-plus career in which she had hit songs with the Stan Kenton and Gene Krupa bands, and was generally considered one of the four or five finest female jazz vocalists in the world.

But O’Day is a survivor in the true sense of the word: Her career is littered with enough addictions, emotional uncertainties and professional problems to have defeated a less resolute artist. And now she has done it again, refusing to remain in what her closest friends thought might be her deathbed, returning to action in good health, her only physical problem the badly knit broken arm that put her in the hospital in the first place.

On Sunday afternoon at the Jazz Bakery, O’Day’s remarkable recovery was celebrated with a jampacked benefit show that climaxed with her first public performance in nearly two years.

The 2 1/2-hour program was filled with a wide range of performers, including singers Kay Starr, Annette Warren, Estelle Reiner, Monica Lewis and others, backed by the Pete Smith Trio, with Steve Allen and Carl Reiner hosting. All praised O’Day, eager to offer their tributes. But the highlight of the afternoon, the moment the enthusiastic crowd was waiting for, was the appearance of O’Day.

She came on stage almost apologetically, explaining that her breath control was not what it used to be, asking her listeners not to expect too much. “I used to be called a ‘personality singer’ for years,” she said. “But then, suddenly, it became ‘jazz singer.’ ” And, in typical O’Day fashion, she demonstrated why, counting off the time and digging into the rhythms of “Let’s Fall in Love.”

And it also was characteristic that, in her first public performance after a near-death experience, she refused to coast, singing in the only way she seems to know how to do--full out, never hesitating to try for the offbeat line and the odd note in the harmony.

She continued with “It Had to Be You,” and even more of the old O’Day surfaced as she took charge of the band, suddenly sending them into a double-time rhythm, cranking up the energy to peak level. It wasn’t exactly vintage O’Day, with some missed notes here and there and occasional dropped phrases. But it was good, and it was promising--a more than optimistic prospect that some appealing music may yet result from O’Day’s phoenix-like return to action.