Anita ODay - And The Three Sounds '2019

Tracks list

This strange (and strangely compelling) album is the most controversial of all
ODays Verve Records releases, popular among ODays hardcore fans for the showcase
that the Three Sounds near-minimalist accompaniment affords her singing. On a
lot of levels, however, it wasnt a successful record. The album was a one-shot
collaboration that happened in the narrowest possible window-of-opportunity. The
Three Sounds, having left Blue Note, were passing through the Verve roster,
where they would be active for about a week in October of 1962, cutting two
albums in that time including this one with Anita ODay, who was leaving the
label after 10 years there. Anita ODay & The Three Sounds is as much a Three
Sounds record as it is an Anita ODay recording -- the group is represented by
four instrumentals, including Someday My Prince Will Come, My Heart Stood Still,
and Blues By Five, cut at the same time as their album Blue Genes, while ODay
sings five songs. She is amazingly restrained and low-key throughout most of her
work here; on songs like the sultry All Too Soon, that works out fine, but
elsewhere the fit between singer and group seems uncomfortable. Theres very
little excitement or tension to give her songs energy, and ODay never interacts
with the trio in any discernable way. Additionally, she seems uninspired in
terms of any inventiveness, with long stretches of silence where one would have
expected her to improvise. What is here is fine, her husky yet playful voice a
wonder to hear on When The World Was Young (where Gene Harriss piano does come
to life), but theres amazingly little life to the procedings. The one exception
is Whisper Not, which also has the distinction of featuring ODays Gene Krupa-era
collaborator Roy Eldridge on trumpet and is the most successful cut here, as
what one would look for on a more conventional Anita ODay album. [Some reissues
feature a second, previously unissued Eldridge cut from the same sessions, a hot
remake of his and ODays Gene Krupa-era hit Let Me Off Uptown, with the two of
them in a duet on their old 1940s hit.]

Tracklist:
01. Anita ODay - When The World Was Young (3:34)
02. Anita ODay - Someday My Prince Will Come (4:23)
03. Anita ODay - All Too Soon (3:18)
04. Anita ODay - My Heart Stood Still (3:36)
05. Anita ODay - My Ship (4:33)
06. Anita ODay - Leave It To Me (4:16)
07. Anita ODay - Whisper Not (2:56)
08. Anita ODay - Blues By Five (4:40)
09. Anita ODay - Fly Me To The Moon (3:51)
10. Anita ODay - You And The Night And The Music (2:42)

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