Silvya Day Crossfire

A typical description of Day Blindness involves references to the theoretically similar but inherently antithetical West Coast bands the Doors and Iron Butterfly, and it does in fact play something like a cross between those two groups, though with none of the musical nuance and aesthetic vision – and none of the existential considerations – of the former and with all the unrelenting bombast and sonic pretension of the latter…

One of the premier postwar vocalists and actresses, with a strikingly pure voice that sums up American music's glamorous era. Doris Day packed four careers into one lifetime, two each in music and movies. The pity is that all most people remember are her movies, from Teacher's Pet (1957) onward, as the quintessential all-American girl, cast opposite such icons of masculinity as Clark Gable and Rock Hudson. She also transposed this following to television at the end of the '60s with a situation comedy that lasted into the early '70s. If most people remember her as a singer, it's usually for such pop hits as "Secret Love" and her Oscar-winning "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)," which became her signature tune. But before all of that, from 1939 until the end of the '40s, Doris Day was one of the hottest, sultriest swing-band vocalists in music…

A combination of three sessions with three different small backing groups available currently on a Japanese CD - this is an early revealing example of Anita O'Day's growth as a jazz artist since her days as a big band thrush. Her virtuosity at fast tempos is right on the dot, and she is fearlessly willing to take wide-open liberties with the melodies. The tune of "The Man I Love," and for instance, is completely taken apart and personalized; you wouldn't even recognize it were it not for the words. O'Day also shows us her vulnerable side in a remarkable on-the-edge performance of "You Don't Know What Love Is," and she gives listeners a rare taste of her songwriting in "Anita's Blues." Barney Kessel and Tal Farlow sit in on guitar on four tracks apiece; the other four are with piano trio. Low-key, modestly produced, this is best heard as directed - in the evening.

What Every Girl Should Know (1960). When Doris Day entered the recording studio to make her annual LP in December 1959, she was arguably at her peak as a movie star, having seen the release two months earlier of Pillow Talk, the first of the frothy comedies she would make in the late '50s and early '60s. But as a recording artist, she seemed to be in trouble. Since 1957, when both Day by Day and the soundtrack to The Pajama Game, in which she starred, made the Top Ten, she had not cracked the album charts, failing with Day by Night (1958) and Cuttin' Capers (1959). Unfortunately, What Every Girl Should Know was not the album to reverse this pattern. The concept, as expressed in Robert Wells and David Holt's 1954 title song, was the offering of advice to females, much of it, as it happened, written by men…

This album is very similar to "The Essential Anita O'Day - Basin Street West 1964" on the Emily label. It is from the same stream of gigs and may even be a different set recorded on the same day. Anita is in absolutely top form. Her performance is excellent. However the quality of the recording is fairly poor; it sounds tinny and Anita's voice has a pronounced echo on many tracks. The recording was likely something that Anita and/or John Poole recorded themselves to review the performance (especially since it is being issued by Poole's wife and son). If you can handle the sound quality, you'll get some top notch Anita.

While Collectables Records often has been able to pair complementary albums in its series of discount-priced two-fer reissues of Doris Day's catalog, there are also stray LPs that don't sound like any of their siblings and so can only be teamed in mismatched combinations. Such a set of non-identical twins is found on this CD containing Love Him! and Show Time. Love Him!, which arrived after a lengthy break in Day's recording career in the winter of 1963-1964, found her working under the aegis of her 21-year-old son, Columbia Records producer Terry Melcher, who attempted to update and broaden his mother's musical approach, having her cut recent songs associated with Elvis Presley plus selections from the country and R&B charts…

This is a live recording of Anita O'Day in her mature stage, where you can enjoy her favorite standard numbers. The ending song, "Tea for Two," a recreation of the movie "A Midsummer Night's Dream," is a must-listen.