Jazz legend Anita O’Day has died in Los Angeles at age 87.

Anita might not be the best known jazz singer that ever lived, but she was certainly among the most talented. Though not gifted with a great voice, she overcame this limitation by developing an exemplary jazz singing style.

My favorite memory of her can be found on Jazz on a Summer’s Day/A Summer’s Day With Bert Stern, where she demonstrates in just two songs how jazz singing is done. If you haven’t seen this DVD, which includes other jazz greats such as Thelonious Monk, Sony Stitt, Louis Armstrong, and others, it is definitely worth checking out. I would rate it among the top 5 in the jazz DVD department.

Anita lived a very hard life, which she eventually documented in her biography, High Times Hard Times, a harrowing account of years of heroine and alcohol addiction, among other things.
CNN has an article on her passing as does The NY Times.

She will be missed.