Text size:

'Jazz on a Summer's Day'

Rating:

BY JOHN ANDERSON | Special to Newsday

August 15, 2008

The iconic image of Anita O'Day is from "Jazz on a Summer's Day," shot at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, where she showed up for her afternoon set in heels, an audacious bonnet and a slinky black dress, treating the crowd (some of whom looked somnambulistic) to a white-hot "Sweet Georgia Brown." O'Day was high as a kite - probably, she says, in one of the many interviews that punctuate "The Life of a Jazz Singer." Robbie Cavalina and Ian McCrudden's loving tribute to the great singer orchestrates archival footage, late-in-life interviews and some spectacular music into one of the better bio-pics of recent years.

Despite her substance abuse, there was an incredible strength to O'Day, who refused to compromise her art (while never calling it such) and lived a jazz life at a time when women didn't. The directors (Cavalina was an O'Day confidante up to her 2006 death) strike an elemental balance between performances, grillings she received from TV hosts (there's a delicious moment when she puts an unctuous Bryant Gumbel in his place) and an overview of what being a jazz musician meant during a certain time in America.

(unrated)

PLOT One of the pre-eminent women of jazz, captured through her music and her reflections on a turbulent, rigorously honest life.

CAST Anita O'Day, Johnny Mandel, Annie Ross

LENGTH 1:31

PLAYING AT Cinema Village, Manhattan

BOTTOM LINE Swinging, satisfying portrait of a woman who was among the best at what she did. And whom, after this film, you'd really like to have met.