Anita O'Day & The Three Sounds

Verve Records V-8514

1962 Mono Release

NM/NM

A while back, my wife and I were looking around an antiques store in Pittsboro, NC. We poked around a bit, and in the back I spotted a couple of boxes of albums. Along with the usual 1960s soundtracks, a few forlorn classical titles, and a nearly complete collection of Nancy Sinatra albums, there were a few gems, including this Verve Records original pressing by Anita O'Day.

Anita O'Day got her start singing in clubs in Chicago in the late 1930s. Her big break came when jazz and big band drummer Gene Krupa hired her in 1941. Based on recordings she made with Krupa, Downbeat magazine named her "New Star Of The Year."  After Krupa was

arrested and imprisoned for possession

of marijuana in 1943, O'Day worked with Woody Herman's and Stan Keaton's bands. In 1947, O'Day herself was arrested on a marijuana possession charge and spent 90 days in a Los Angeles jail. Once out of the slammer, O'Day spent the next several years with Herman and Keaton and also performed with Count Basie in New York. O'Day was arrested again in 1953 on another marijuana charge, but the case was dismissed. Unfortunately, at about the same time, she began using heroin and was arrested once again. She served six months in prison before being released in 1954. She would continue to struggle with heroin addiction for many years, nearly dying from an overdose in 1967.  Despite her drug dependency and troubles with the law, O'Day had a very successful recording career. She cut her first solo album in 1952, entitled Anita O'Day Sings Jazz. The album appeared on Norgran Records, the very first 12" LP issued on the legendary Norman Granz' brand new label. O'Day made a second record for Norgran in 1955, and when Granz founded Verve Records in 1956, she followed him there. In all, O'Day would make 15 records for Verve. The last of these was Anita O'Day & The Three Sounds, released in 1962.

Anita O'Day & The Three Sounds is unusual because O'Day only sings on six of the ten songs. The other four tracks are instrumentals that feature The Three Sounds, who also play backup on the vocal tracks. The Three Sounds were formed in 1956 in Benton Harbor, Michigan, and were "discovered" by saxophone great Lou Donaldson while playing in New York a few years later. Though never a block-buster group, they recorded dozens of albums as a solo act and as a backup band before they broke up in 1973.

The overall mood of Anita O'Day & The Three Sounds is light and swinging, with straight-ahead readings by O'Day and tasteful backing by The Three Sounds. There is an excellent and uncredited trumpet solo by Roy Eldridge on "Whisper Not" that makes the cut one of the album's highlights. Even still, the album was not warmly received. Some reviewers criticized O'Day for "phoning in" her performance since her contract with Verve was expiring.

When I bought the record, the vinyl looked very clean, but the jacket was in a dirty plastic outer sleeve that had been stapled to the back opening of the gatefold jacket, which meant I couldn't really examine the jacket without fear of damaging it. When I got it home, I found that the previous owner had not only stapled the outer sleeve to the back of the jacket, he had glued the edges of the dust sleeve to the inside of the LP pocket. I carefully removed the staples and used a box cutter to gently extract the dust sleeve.

Once I got the outer sleeve off, I was delighted to find that the jacket was mint (well, except for the very tiny staple holes in the back.) It literally looks like it was made yesterday with not a touch of ring wear and only very slight edge wear to one corner. It is a gatefold jacket, and appears to have never been opened. On the inside are extensive liner notes by Jack Fuller, who wrote jazz criticism for the Chicago Tribune, where he went on to become editor and win a Pulitzer Prize. The back of the jacket still has the original store sales sticker. The album was purchased from a store called "Del Padre" for $3.79. Which is considerably less than I paid 55 years later. Likewise, the vinyl is flawless and still has the shine of a new record. I gave it a wash on my VPI 16.5 record cleaner and put it on my dedicated mono turntable. The vinyl is flat and dead quiet. Not a tick on the record. The overall sound is excellent, with great dynamics and a nice "3rd row center" feel you get from mono recordings.

Credits:

Anita O'Day - Vocals
Gene Harris - Piano
Bill Dowdy - Drums
Andrew Simpkins - Bass
Roy Eldridge - Trumpet (uncredited)
Creed Taylor - Producer
Engineer - Val Valentin

The deadwax information is:

Side 1: V8514 SIDE 1 62VG244 RE-1 ["S" MGM pressing plant stamp] see below
Side 2: V8514 SIDE 2 62VG245 RE-1 ["S" MGM pressing plant stamp] see below

The dead wax has an MGM pressing plant stamp because Granz sold the Verve label to MGM in December, 1960. MGM continued to use the iconic black and silver "T" label on its Verve releases, adding a line at the bottom of the label that read "MGM Records - A Division of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. - Made in U.S.A." The album has a 1.25" (32mm) pressing groove in the center which (along with the S stamp in the deadwax) confirms that it was pressed at MGM's plant in Bloomfield, NJ.  The plant was used until 1972 when MGM was sold to Polygram.




Oh, I bought the Nancy Sinatra albums as well. I'm a sucker for 60s schmaltzy pop. They turned out to be NM German pressings. Another great find. They're so bad, they're good.

Enjoy the music!