Anita O'Day and Billy May Swing Rodgers and Hart

Fresh off their 1959 tribute to Cole Porter, Anita O’Day and arranger-conductor Billy May reunited for this program of Rodgers and Hart tunes. May once again proved that he was the only big-band leader who could keep pace with O’Day. This is probably the speediest, jumpiest set of tunes the singer ever recorded — which is saying a lot for O’Day, who moved like a gazelle. Even when conducting a gigantic band May still managed to fit little details into the tiny spaces — the flutes pop out like confetti between the measures of “Johnny One Note.” O’Day is a natural for the jaunty, moveable melodies of Rodgers and Hart — witness her dance up and down the melody of “To Keep My Love Alive” as if it were a grand staircase. Not to mention her signature scatting, which propels “Have You Met Miss Jones.” Rodgers and Hart wrote songs that were favored by squeaky-clean female vocalists. O’Day is a different breed. She invigorates the same old material with her rollicking personality and earthy sincerity. This album shows why she was in a league of her own.

Anita O'Day and Billy May had met before, on a glorious 1959 date swinging Cole Porter, before they reconvened just 14 months later to do similar damage to the songbook of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart.