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On Savoy, Tribute To Anita O'Day by Steve Day
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In February, Teignmouth Jazz and Blues Club featured Annika Skoogh paying homage to the singer Anita O’Day. Her band for the evening included Craig Milverton (piano), Al Swainger (double bass) and Gary Evans (drums). Before they played the first set, performance poet Steve Day read his poem On Savoy, Tribute To Anita O'Day accompanied by Craig Milverton curling Stella By Starlight around the words.
Born Anita Colton in Kansas City, Missouri in 1919, Anita O'Day became known as 'The Jezebel Of Jazz'. Wikipedia states: '.. her early big band appearances shattered the traditional image of the "girl singer". Refusing to pander to any female stereotype, O'Day presented herself as a "hip" jazz musician, wearing a band jacket and skirt as opposed to an evening gown. She changed her surname from Colton to O'Day, pig Latin for "dough", slang for money.' She went on to work with some of the great bands of her day including Gene Krupa, Woody Herman, Stan Kenton, Benny Goodman and many others. She died of a heart attack in 2006 at the age of 87. You can read more about Anita here.
In the 1940s and 1950s Anita was charged with a number of drug offences. Wikipedia again reads: ' ....She appeared in the documentary Jazz on a Summer's Day, filmed at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, which increased her popularity. She admitted later that she was probably high on heroin during the concert.....'
Here's a video of Anita O'Day singing Sweet Georgia Brown and Tea For Two at Newport Jazz Festival in 1958.
Steve Day writes about the first verse of his poem: "My father used to say there were three women in his life: my mother, Ella Fitzgerald and Antia O’Day – I watched Jazz On A Summer’s Day before Disney."
"One strong feature about Anita as a person was, she became a heroin user well before Charlie Parker, Art Pepper and Bill Evans etc. She 
herself used to say that she couldn’t remember much about Georgia Brown and Tea For Two at Newport because, despite appearances, she was totally high and riding on a hit."
Anita O'Day at Newport
"My first verse is set in a cross between downtown New York and Soho of the period, 1958/59. In Britain the Salvation Army and their band did a lot of good work among the jazz community. That’s how the poem starts. The ‘hornets nest’ is a slang term for heroin addiction; heroin used to be ‘cut’ with bicarbonate of soda to get a cheap fix. The two ‘cod almighty’ lines are a reference to the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival. There used to be a fishing industry there .... ‘shoals of silk’ represents the female singers at Newport that year, Anita O’Day and of course Dinah Washington and Mahalia Jackson. ‘Fishing’ is also another term for trying to score drugs."
"However, much later in life Anita managed to beat her heroin habit ..... it’s for that reason the second verse is positive, focusing on Stella By Starlight. The best album she ever made? In my opinion, Anita O’Day Sings The Most is an absolute gem."
On Savoy, Tribute To Anita O’Day
Jesus wept and died on Savoy
more times than the Salvation Army
had brass monkeys to sing supper
for quarter-cut redemptions.
It was a place to purchase tar and feathers,
sting the hornet with bar-carbonate of soda
and survive the revival.
Here the cod almighty came out of the oceans
in shoals of silk and left again frozen in crates.
Anita O’Day, November in a big flat brimmed
summer hat scatting Stella By Starlight
as if the sky at night could shoot the skin with
the height of heaven.
I needed to hear that voiced phrasing
in a hell of visions,
the crack of her held note, sobbing with smiles.
I wanted those brushes on the snare, the way she
repaid Billie with a belief in the spontaneity of love;
strip a song naked whilst fully clothed.
Steve Day will be at Ashburton Arts Centre in Devon on Friday 18th March 2022 at 7.30 pm : Steve Day (words. percussion); Peter Evans (5-string electric violin, loops); Julian Dale (double bass, bowed bowls, voice); Mark Langford (tenor saxophone, bass clarinet, piano); Andy Williamson (tenor & soprano saxophone, piano); Roger Hal (gongs, percussion, double bass) and with special guest, Jennie Osborne (words). Click here for details.
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