Live in Tokyo '63 (2008)

1. Boogie Blues
2. Trav'lin' Light
3. Honeysuckle Rose
4. Avalon
5. Bewitched
6. You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To
7. Night And Day
8. Let's Fall In Love
9. Sweet Georgia Brown
10. Tea For Two
11. Stella By Starlight
12. Love For Sale
13. Get Out Of Town
14. That Old Feeling
15. Four Brothers Product Description

 A diva in her prime
Seeing Anita O'Day perform is always a treat. She is my favorite female singer from that era.

I have to ding this DVD one point for poor video quality. It was a TV show, but I don't think they even taped it. This looks like the old kinescope recordings from the early days of TV where they just filmed a monitor while the show was going out live. May 7, 2008

 Singing, Swinging, Scatting
After seeing the excellent new documentary Anita O'Day: Life Of A Jazz Singer, I got interested in further exploration of her music. This DVD catches Anita at the peak of her abilities. Whether she's fronting a big band on "Stella By Starlight" or a small combo on "Honeysuckle Rose," she swings hard, with humor and heart in equal measures. There's a depth of feeling in her singing that is completely captivating. She can move you with a single word. While I enjoy modern jazzy singers like Stacey Kent and Diana Krall, there simply is no comparison once you hear Anita O'Day. She is the real thing. I'd recommend this DVD to anyone who loves jazz and great singing. April 29, 2008

 The Epitome of Cool
Despite being a less than stellar transfer to DVD, Kayo's "Live in Tokyo '63" is a must-have for those of us who just can't get enough Anita O'Day. Looking glamorous, fit, and younger than her years, Miss O'Day delivers the goods on each and every song. The voice is only part of the scintillating package: hand gestures (gloved, naturally), body movement, facial expressions, good looks--all devastatingly cool. It strikes me as paradoxical that someone whose personal life was so chaotic and fraught with vice could pull herself together long enough to create a performance this flawless. Granted, she has plently of help in the form of The All-Star Orchestra and Inomata and His West Liners, both highly talented groups of jazz musicians. But not for one moment is there any doubt as to who's THE STAR here. Re-creating each song in her own lovely image, Miss O'Day manages to capture and so completely dominate the stage that one hardly cares which tunes Cole Porter wrote, and when the camera cuts away briefly to feature a soloing musician, we're just thankful that the solos are, indeed, brief. I might add that the camerawork and composition of shots throughout are phenomenal, adding even more interest and variety to the inherently intriguing entity that is Anita O'Day. March 2, 2008

 Cool Confident and one more reason she beat Billie Holiday in the polls
You have got to see this. Anita O'Day in Tokyo, clearly in charge and getting performances out of the Japanese band they could only imagine in their dreams. Now you can understand why she consistently beat Billie Holiday in the polls at the time. She was hot, stylish, confident and striking both vocally and personally.
I had the privilege of seeing her twice in the 1990s and especially on the earlier performance (on a double bill with Chris Connor) she still had it in spades.
It's great to finally have this DVD available to the general public to enjoy. It's in black and white but otherwise it could have been taped last year and still be exciting to watch.
She was one of a kind.
Bill Donoghue February 28, 2008

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