High Times Hard Times by Anita O'Day, George Eells Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of High Times Hard Times
Book Review: Ain't easy singin' jazz
Summary: 3 Stars
This is an interesting read for anyone who sings, plays, or enjoys jazz music. It's the story of a person who hit the pits in the jazz world and then rose above it. The late Anita O'Day tells it like it is. How easy it is to get a drug habit and how hard it is to kick it. How she was ripped off by shady agents and record producers, as well as band leaders. The lady had her own special way of presenting a tune, and she stuck to her guns despite the advent of rock and roll which made a lot of jazz performers give up performing jazz music and jump on the rock and roll band wagon, i.e. sax man King Curtis to keep the rent paid. She had some real rough times and tells of how she had to pawn nearly everything she had to get enough to eat or support her drug habit. Eventually she kicked her heroin habit(after fourteen years) and became an icon in the jazz world. O'Day tells of her different "gigs", traveling and doing one nighters with bands such as Krupa, Kenton, and other big bands of the thirties, forties, and fifties. A good insight into the ups and downs of a jazz performer.Book Review: Anita stands alone
Summary: 5 Stars
Although I love jazz vocalists--Carmen McRae, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sarah Vaughn in particular--I had never heard of Anita O'Day until I listened to a replay of an interview she did with Terri Gross for Fresh Air. I actually bought and read her autobiography before (or at least while) I was getting to know her music.
What I enjoy about this book and O'Day's music is that she keeps it simple and honest. It is true that her career suffered because of heroin addiction. But it's her style to simply say: "And that's how that went down." Period. No regrets. Meanwhile, she made an important contribution to jazz, and she was there for much of its high season--swing, bebop, cool. There is so much joy in her singing--and that's what she said she wanted in life: to make people happy though music. Every time I hear Honeysuckle Rose, she lifts me up!
Book Review: Candid, excellent, jazz autobiographhy
Summary: 5 Stars
Seems like a truly honest, candid account of the jazz life of a famous jazz singer, warts and all. Very touching in its candor in which the singer's habits brought down her considerable talents and what could have seemed like a glamorous life on the road really was far more debased than what one might imagine. Besides the sordid side, a lot of opinions about the jazz abilities of a lot of famed musicians of the forties and fifties; generally, a very honest, open and sometimes painful account of the jazz life of a great artist. I had the pleasure of meeting the aritst in person at a performance a few years ago, and she revealed that she had never read the final product herself. Highly worthwhile.Book Review: Excellent read with some editing flaws
Summary: 5 Stars
At 3 a.m. last night I finally read a last chapter,couldnt put it down before.Yes,Anita O'Day writting voice sounds very much like her singing self: ironic,witty,tough hip "swing chick" (her words) who didnt give a damn what others think.Her self-destructivness very much echoes another famous artist (in rock music) Marianne Faithfull,in fact this two women have much more in common than you think.Both survivors,both eventually come back and yes,both are still live preformers.Her opinion about other jazz singers are sometimes strange ("Like me,Ella never had a great voice"?) - but think that she was commercially oversahdowed by Fizgerald.As much as Anita's "Verve" albums are beautiful and timeless (I really think woman was a highest-class jazz improvisator,she grew up from Billie Holiday and made her own style) this book is sometimes painful to read.I believe there is a general curiousity about somebody's dirty linen,in this case it almost overshadow her art - at some points it reads like 50's detective story,with smokey jazz clubs,jazz musicians as a drug addicts and cops always around to "find" (read:set up) drugs in dressing room.With all beautiful music she made,its a pity that editor of the book find more interesting to emphasise her drug addiction,since her arrests,sanatoriums,jails and courts get more space than anything else.I dont think this was her intention,probably publisher wanted scandalous story,but if you dont know her music,this book can make you think that Anita O'Day was a famous junkie who had a music as a hobby.Book Review: Great Biography
Summary: 4 Stars
Great book, you will find how the life of this singer was.How does the musicians have to survive in hard times.
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