Anita O'Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer

This programme contains some strong language.

# Yesterdays, days I knew As happy, sweet sequestered days... #

-That's my key.

-Like that better?

-I got to work on it.

# Olden days, golden days

# Days of happiness and love... #

Your personal experiences include rape,

abortion, jail, heroin addiction...

'That's just the way it went down, Bryant.'

# Don't the moon look lonesome Shinin' through the trees

# Don't the moon look lonesome Shinin' through the trees

# Don't your arms look lonesome When your baby packs up to leave

# Well, I'm goin' up on the mountain To call that baby of mine

# Well, I'm goin' up on the mountain To call that baby of mine

# But something tells me He's not coming back this time

# Well, I could go up to the country Baby, can't take you

# I'm goin' up to the country Can't take you

# Nothin' up there A man like you could do-o-o

# He's got a face like a fish

# Shape like a frog

# When he loves me I holler ooh, hot dog

# Love that man better than I do myself

# But he left me all alone All alone on the shelf... #

SHE SCATS

This is the story about a woman who wanted to be a jazz singer

and refused to let anything stop her.

She started singing at the age of 12

for coins thrown on a dance floor.

She just barely made enough money to pay the rent as a band singer,

a canary, in the '40s.

She had two bad marriages and was a heroin addict for 15 years.

She survived all that to become one of the world's great jazz singers.

We can hear most of you saying Anita who?

But among jazz musicians,

she is considered one of a handful of great singers.

Critic Leonard Feather agrees.

There are four basic elements

that go into a great jazz vocal performance.

One is the singer's tone quality,

or timbre, the individual tone and sound of the voice,

another is the phrasing,

the extent to which he or she has the jazz feeling.

A third element is the choice of accompanying musicians,

another one is the choice of material.

# It's not the pale moon

# That excites me

# That thrills and delights me

# Oh, no, oh-oh-oh-oh

# It's just the nearness of you. #

-Pretty, Anita.

-Nice tune.

Billie Holiday, who to me was the greatest female jazz singer

of all time, had all those elements, Ella Fitzgerald has them,

Sarah Vaughn has them,

Carmen McCray has them and Anita O'Day has them.

# Sweet Georgia Brown

-And that's to you, folks.

-You have a good day. Great to see you.

Thank you.

-(COUNTER CLERK)

-Hey, Anita.

Give me my bet. I'll take your bet.

Just before he left, he went to the races one day

and played a horse called Anita.

And he come back

and he had some money

and a friend of his had bet him that it wasn't going to win

and it did, and he'd bet him an apartment on the west side.

So we moved in with all the furniture there, a piano was there

and a big round table and he would make beer in the pantry

and have his friends over for poker.

My mother was very strict, she never drank or smoked

and everything was wrong and... just the other side.

I, I don't get into that part.

She was pregnant, you see, and they went to Chicago to get married.

And by the time we came back, I was like, what,

three months old or something like that and everybody was saying,

what a big baby for just being born.

Well, that went around, they used to tell me about that and, eh,

but they were married.

And then they didn't get along, then they got married again,

remember I said 12 times?

Well, he married my mother twice. Oh, he was out there.

But he was a gentleman, he married them.

My mother played piano, my father drank beer

and we'd get a harmony going.

That's how we got into singing. I'd hold my ears to sing the melody,

# Moonlight and roses. #

INTERVIEWER LAUGHS

And my father was like a tenor, my mother a baritone

and she'd ting, ting, ting, ting.

And that's the start,

never knowing I was ever going to, you know, get into it.

I got O'Day from pig Latin.

Like I, you say, a, can you n-kay oo-yay alk-tay ig-pay atin-lay?

You know, and on and on and on and

when it finally comes down to the name, you talk and you talk, and say

O'Day and you might make some.

O'Day, Anita O'Day, like Anita makes music, makes music and O'Day.

Those marathon walkathons, tell me about that.

Oh, I was in those when I was about 14.

-What did you do?

-I walked. That's right.

And that's where I met Red Skelton, who was an MC at the show

and Frankie Laine was a contestant,

not my partner, but a contestant in one of the shows.

And we would just walk around and whoever walks the longest wins.

I was very young, though.

Well, I hitchhiked down there,

I was in one 3,228 hours, came in second!

Oh, well, ta-da-da.

One of the times I'm walking around,

the Lord was standing beside me in the long white jacket

and the white hair and he says, "How're you feeling, Anita?"

And I said, "Oh, all right,"

and I'm thinking, "What's going on here," you know?

And he says, "What are you going to do with your life?"

"Well, I'd like to sing and entertain the world."

And he said to me, not you got it, but words to that effect,

"All right, Anita, you got it," and he disappeared.

So, every time I go to sing I say, thank you and I make it.

# Thanks for the boogie ride I'm more than gratified

# I'm really satisfied Which only goes to prove

# You don't know until you glide Into the boogie ride

# How quickly you will glide Out of this world. #

Gene came to town and he says, "Hey, Anita, how are you doing?"

He's at the Chicago Theater, he says, "My girl singer's getting married,

"what am I going to do?" He called me,

I went down and there were four people auditioning that day.

I'm drinking to the winner.

# Thank you for the boogie ride It really was great. #

The real Swing Era breakthrough was to

sort of sound relaxed and determined at the same time.

Earlier jazz was really fervent.

Those were the hits for the band.

I was just vocalist. Uptown, Gene bought a house in Yonkers.

INTERVIEWER LAUGHS

Yeah, and I got 7 and 50 cents.

How many people could sing with Gene Krupa

and not walk away with that great feeling of melody

and rhythm.

God knows she sure did.

Gene says, "You can swing, you better come with us."

And I've been doing it ever since.

-Hey, Joe.

-What do you mean Joe? My name's Roy.

Well, come here, Roy, and get groovy. You been uptown?

No, I ain't been uptown, but I been around.

You mean to say you ain't been uptown?

No, I haven't been uptown, what's uptown?

# Pleasure you're about

# And you feel like stepping out

# All you've got to shout is let me off uptown! #

Let Me Off Uptown was a classic.

I mean, that will last for ever.

Anita, when she sang with Roy Eldridge,

that in itself was a ground-breaking thing,

to have a white girl sing with a great black artist

like Roy Eldridge.

That had never been heard of, like, you know?

A black guy up there with a white girl, you know in that time,

in those times, you know.

# If you want to pitch a ball

# And you can't afford a hall... #

That raised a lot of heads.

People looked and said, what's going on up there?

This was a time

when the racial problems were pretty high level in the country,

and it was, it was considered, like, that's pretty nice of her

to sing with, she and Roy, to get together and sing a duet.

And I was impressed with that and of course,

the main thing was the way she sang and the way she looked, very pretty.

# All you've got to call is Let me off uptown. #

But that song and when they spoke to each other...

# Anita, oh, Anita... #

Say, I feel something.

What do you feel, Roy, the heat?

No, it ain't the heat, it must be that uptown rhythm...

..because I feel like blowin'.

Well, blo-o-o-w Roy, blow.

He'd go to Gene and complain, she's upstaging me!

She's dancing and everything and I'm out there blowing my brains out

and I'm saying to Gene, man, what am I,

I was just dancing to your rhythm, Gene.

Gene says, it's OK.

Roy was mad as hell at Anita O'Day and,

undoubtedly, you know, they had a...

I guess, at best, a sibling relationship

where there are ups and downs.

But the thing he said, he said, she's pretty slick, he said.

You know, I mean, that's a great song.

I don't know where Gene Krupa really sorted this out

but they went for the jugular of redneck America.

They're most uptight about black men and white women,

or seem to have been.

You know, that they did those stage routines, you know,

they were in physical jeopardy, certainly much more...

Roy Eldridge would be the person to be rode out of town and lynched.

But, you know, you can get caught in crossfire

and in a sense, you could be surprised that it happened at all.

I met Anita late '42, early '43

backstage at the Adams Theater in Newark.

And I had taken pictures of her.

And I wrote her a little letter and she kept answering me.

She was real excited about it, she had never gotten

a letter from anybody.

And she called me her number one fan.

I would write to her about what was happening in the army

and she would write me back where she was playing

and that went on for about 63 years.

When I was in Panama, she wanted stockings

because there was a shortage of stockings here in the States,

I'd send her a couple pair.

She said she was, she was low on money or something,

I might have sent a couple dollars, it wasn't really that much.

I'll tell you, she could have been a wealthy girl by now

if she didn't get into the mess that she was in.

I was proud to see her in the movie. With the big hat.

She always was different. She was the greatest.

I love Anita.

Yes, I'm still her number one fan!

# Cat, who's that?

# Struttin' by and he looks so wise... #

Stan's band, nobody drank or smoked

and, during breaks, they'd all run out and get some water or...

and they'd read books in-between sets and everything, you know.

Really, the other side, the other side of life, you know.

And then they weren't swinging, really, they were,

dat, dat, dat, dat.

Stan would go, da-ta-da-ta, whatever... The band is holding

this note and he'd look over at me like, when do I cut it off, you know?

If he did it on his own, he'd cut it off at six and seven eighths,

I never heard of it.

But I'd get him to cut it off on four, so I did that for a year,

you know, just trying to be helpful.

# He would spend it on the ponies

# Spend it on the girls... #

And then the band would come in and sing,

# And her tears flowed like wine. #

You know, it was a piece of material.

Corny, novelty, but that's what I did with that band.

After about 11 months, I says to Stan,

"Man, I'm going to have, you know, get out of here for a while.

"Don't forget I was out there with Gene for many years, Stanley,

"and this is enough, already."

He's, "OK, don't leave me without a real singer."

The next engagement was at Chicago Theater,

this is where I come in with Gene, this is where I got out.

Yeah, there's... Boyd Raeburn Band

was working across the street from the theatre and between sets,

for lunch one day, somebody in the band and me,

I forget which one now, we went over and here's this girl singer

and here's this band, everybody eating Chinese food

and the light bulb went on, man.

It was like it was a painted picture just come to life, meant to be.

I went backstage there and I said, "What is your name?"

And she says, "Shirley Luster," and I said,

"Well, how would you like to be rich and famous?"

And over she comes, they meet and she changes her name to June Christy

and the rest is history, yeah.

A famous story about Anita is that,

even back in the '40s when she was still a band singer,

that band singers were always really glamorous creatures

that wore flowing evening gowns and it was very difficult, you know,

for these poor girls to manage this while they were on the road.

You got to be pretty and you got to wear a dress but they don't move.

# Love is a many-splendoured thing... #

She looks gorgeous, she don't move.

And Anita was the first one to insist on just

wearing a regulation band uniform and a skirt, you know,

not to do the full glamour route.

When Gene was doing very well at the Paramount Theater,

he hired a tailor to give them an outfit, two outfits -

one for on the road with green slacks and a chequered jacket and everything

and I just asked him if I could have a skirt and jacket made.

And I set that trend, played it like one of the guys.

She was like one of the guys in the band,

because that was her training.

And she knew how to handle all those kind of situations

where she was the only woman or whatever. But she was fun.

I got to be one of the guys so much I use to have girls waiting for me...

Well, no, too late now...!

Paris, you had to be chic.

So, that became my way of dressing,

as Anita adopted suits.

People don't think of her as being feminine,

because she's always been so tough. But she is so feminine.

She was always beautifully put together, you know, I have to say.

I had an argument with a woman at Iridium,

a fan,

and the woman was commenting on how pretty Anita was.

And she said, ""ell, of course, she's had lots of surgery."

I said, "No, Anita's never had any plastic surgery."

And the woman said,

"Ha-ha, well, if that's the way you want to remember it," you know,

she figured I was being a loyal friend and I said,

"No, it's absolutely true."

How does she do that? I mean, she's 112 years old now,

I think, isn't she? And she's so pretty, she's prettier than ever.

Well, after Gene Krupa Orchestra for five years

and Stan Kenton for one year, I decided that I would like

to try for a small group, which is different kind of work.

You make the fills yourself, it's called improvising

and that's good jazz.

I'm so glad you could come to the party, young lady.

-Thank you for asking me, sir.

-My delight, my delight.

Just in case you don't know who is with us, this is Anita, of course.

You know, in jazz, there are three queens

they say reign over different parts of the world.

Ella, Billie and Anita.

Well, I guess that's about it, you know.

Between the three of them, they cover all the territory.

Currently, Anita O'Day,

who is sampling our parliament here at the Village Vanguard in New York.

And she has opened, we can't smoke that now

because I have a feeling we'll get you to work...

She's opened to the most sensational reviews of her

always sensational career.

She dropped in to be with the boys,

we got a pretty sturdy combination here, wouldn't you say?

-I tell you what I'd like to do.

-What would you?

For the first couple of numbers,

I'd like to ask the boys, the instruments,

to take five and I'll do a couple of tunes with the trio.

-All right, you want to do that?

-All righty?

-You want us to do that?

-I'd love to.

Make a trio, out of the boys that are here.

Pick out some of the guys. Put your rhythm together.

-Me and Mr Ford.

-Any time, girl.

Anita O'Day, she's going over there now to pick out some musicians

and make a little trio.

I see them quieting down, the lady has her way.

Selecting her musicians for a little trio accompaniment.

Let's catch up with her.

# My heart is sad

# My heart is sad and lonely for you-ou

# For you dear only

# Why haven't you seen it

# I'm all for you, body and... #

And there was sense of, um,

fuck you about it and it was just like, yeah, I don't know.

I'm just going to do it this way

and maybe they haven't done it before,

but let's give it a shot, you know? Play around with the band,

just stick the mic in your tuba or whatever

and show me something, surprise me.

If you're half-assed about it, I'll let you know.

# It's hard to conceive it

# That you turn away romance...

# It looks like the ending our hearts...

Ah, for God's sake!

This is a party.

# One more chance to prove, dear

# That my life's a wreck

# My life's a wreck you're making

# You know I'm yours for just the taking... #

All of this is for the piano player!

# And I would gladly surrender... #

Move closer so I can hear you, baby.

# Body and soul

# My heart's a wreck I'm sad and lonely... #

SHE SINGS SCAT STYLE

# You know that I'm yours

# For just the taking

# And I would gladly surrender... #

SHE SCATS

# Body and sou-ou-ou-l. #

Bebop comes along, and she's not so much making an adjustment,

it's learning rhythmic lines over again

and creating an equally sublime interpretation of the rhythmic line

of the bebop era as she'd done previously.

And that's what sets her apart from some of her contemporaries,

who also sounded as though they were primary associates

of the new jazz of the '40s and '50s.

Well, Anita was working with Max Miller at the High Note,

which is on the near north side of Chicago

and evidently they were going to add a trumpet player.

And so they came to see me when I was playing with Stuff Smith

at the Blue Note and evidently they liked what they heard,

so they hired me and that was the longest job in history,

six months at one nightclub.

Anita was not a singer in my estimation.

She was a musician who used her voice as an instrument.

She really puts it in there.

You have to have had a little bit of life under your belt

in order to make those songs your own.

When I was a disc jockey,

I used to play her music and her records a lot,

simply because she was saying something with the music

that other people were not.

She was certainly an innovator.

I mean, so many ladies tried to sound like Anita.

Once you can turn the radio on or the TV or whatever and say,

hey, that's Anita...

..that's very valuable.

Anyone would ask me, I'd have to say

it's that little thing that hangs down that goes ahhhh.

And I don't have that.

My mother says you're going to have your tonsils taken out.

Well, OK, I figured they, they put you back under or something

and it's not going to hurt.

But the slip of the wrist, it came as a letter to my mother saying,

"Dear Mrs Colton, we are so sorry but the slip of the knife,

"your daughter has no uvula."

They cut the uvula out.

When you go to sing it's very important, you know, you need that.

And that's why I sing eighth notes, so I didn't have to use it.

Like... # Sing. #

I have to shake my head for vibrato.

# Singing in the rain... #

It's an open vowel, you know.

But if I had that I would, like I say, whatever.

But that's why I do a lot of eighth notes tunes, like, let's see.

# So you met someone Who set you back on your heels

# Goody, goody. #

See, I don't have to use it.

Well, I got away, I'm still getting away with it, don't tell everybody.

Oh, what... Here's, this is the one I can't,

what is jazz?

MAN LAUGHS

-What is jazz?

-You tell us.

Well, like, they think I know. I don't know!

I just do what I'm doing and if they think it's jazz, cos it says so,

that's, that's how I got them, so, I don't have to know why.

Let's do a tune called Let's Fall In Love in F in two four,

just like this.

This is the introduction, folks, in two four.

# Let's fall in love

# Why shouldn't we fall in love

# Our hearts are made of it

# Take a chance

# Why be afraid of it. #

Now, stop.

That was in two four time, now the second eighth, same song,

we're going to it into four four time and this is what you get.

# Let's fall in love

# Why shouldn't we fall in love

# Our hearts are made of it

# Take a chance

# Why be afraid of it

# Let's close our eyes and make our own paradise

# Little we know of it

# Still we can try to make a go of it... #

Now, you're going into the bridge,

the melody is just a counterpoint.

I've got de-da-da-da-da-de-de, you want to go up or down?

D minor, the chord's D minor.

# De-la-de-do-do-do... #

That's the melody.

# Dee-ala-da-da-dee...

# Let's fall in love

# Why shouldn't we fall in love

# Now is the time for it while we are young

# Let's fall in love... #

SHE SCATS

Everything that happened in the room and every sound she heard,

she would somehow work into her performance and I remember vividly

that she talked about the ceiling fan

whirling above her with a chit, chit-chit-chit.

So, she threw that into the music

and made that part of her rhythm. That's a jazz singer.

# Let's fall in love why shouldn't we fall in love

# Our hearts are made for it... #

I felt about her as I felt like films by John Cassavetes.

It's like, how can it seem so spontaneous

and so fit in with the music and that's why jazz

is still a mystery to me, it's like, do they rehearse all of that stuff?

# Still we can try to make a go of it

# We might have been meant for each other... #

That's jazz singing, to improvise.

# To be or not to be

# Let our hearts discover

# Let's fall...

# La, la, la, la, love

# While we are young

# While we are young

# Let's fall in love In love, in la-la-love

# Let's fall in lo-o-ve

# Let's fall in la-la-la-love... #

Not just four, but five notes, la, just that time,

-it's different each time, you see?

-Yeah, right.

And that's what jazz is all about, it's sort of a freelance sketch.

That's beautiful.

# I told you I love you

# Now get out... #

I got married a couple of times, too.

Sorry about that.

Why do you laugh like that?

Because, like, just curious about things, you do things, you know?

No, but you say, I been married a couple of times too, ha-ha-ha! Why?

-Well, I was curious about marriage, too.

-Was your curiosity satiated?

-I'm not married now.

-How come?

-I got enough of that.

One was the drummer, Don Carter.

And that lasted about a year

and his mother was very unhappy about the scene and I didn't want to live

with Mother, so he says, well, I'll see you later, Anita, thanks a lot.

So, he and Mom went off to New York

and right after that I was singing at the Three Deuces, the off beat room

downstairs, and Art Tatum was the piano player upstairs, not too bad.

And this guy comes in and years later he told me,

he just stepped in out of the rain in the alcove.

And he saw my picture on the wall, didn't even know it was a nightclub.

He had his car parked next door

and he just stopped in there and then he was going to go get his car.

He was a golf pro.

And so he came in and as he walked in and sat down,

I was singing the tune...

# While tearing off a game of golf

# I may make a play for the caddy

# When I do I don't follow through Cos my heart belongs to Daddy... #

And he, he told me this, you know.

And he said, he told his friend when he got home,

I'm going to marry that girl. And it's true, we were married 14 years.

-Wonderful.

-Yeah, how about that.

Well, I was in the business, you know?

And he was a golf pro which keeps him over there and when, and home,

and I'm out on the road all the time and you just drift apart.

So, it wasn't, eh, planned, just kind of...mutual agreement.

There are jazz singers and jazz musicians

but then there's the jazz life, and that is what Anita O'Day epitomises.

The jazz life to me is improvising

your life every step of the way.

That's very much hand in hand with drug addiction.

Which is like a unique thing, I think, about jazz, frankly,

because you have to live it. You have to live it

and perform it, speaking for what

I've seen with my father.

I mean, there's no...

It's ingrained in every fibre,

every breathing moment.

Singers and performers, you know, we're really insane,

that we're working tough hours, many places,

and they needed something that would relax them,

either scotch, gin, whatever you drank,

or, worse than that, the drugs.

-How could you ever get involved with all that junk?

-How could you?

-Yeah.

-Curiosity killed the cat, right?

-Was it just curiosity?

-Of course.

-Was there a lot of it around, Anita?

-Right. It was a thing in California.

I guess it was a thing in New York too. You know, as you travel, it's always there.

It's like certain people, they just kind of hang out, and whatever town

you are in, they come around so it is very hard to quit.

You say, "I am going to quit,"

and there's a group of people, that is what they do in life.

We all needed drugs so we took them,

and the more we took them, the more we needed.

I mean, it's the most seductive, insidious kind of thing

because it's your lover,

it's your buffer between the world and problems you have.

If you get high, you feel great.

Is there anything, honestly, to the fact that cannabis,

marijuana, pot, Mary Jane, taking a thumb break,

whatever you call it, muggles - have I left anything out? -

actually helps a musician have more choices and variety in his playing?

Oh, gosh. I don't really think so.

Because that was the rumour, of course.

Probably. That's why a lot of people tried it for some unknown reason.

But it really has nothing to do with what you really do

if you can do it at all.

That is where all the jazz is.

You know, "They got the name, play the game."

I told you about when they put me in jail on pot.

I said, "I got the name. Haven't done it. I'll play the game.

"They are going to think that anyhow."

Then you get curious and you go find out for yourself.

The first one was the marijuana and the paper in Long Beach says,

"Bars for O'Day but not music." Headlines like war was declared.

Funny. Funny.

They really had the cops out for everybody.

"You mustn't drink, you mustn't take drugs."

I was asked several times if I took something. "Yeah, a Coca-Cola."

And these guys would follow, especially the big bands or anybody

that was pretty popular, they'd follow them because they knew

at some point, somebody, without thinking about it,

was going to light up or do whatever the guys were doing at that time,

and then they'd make a quick arrest and the headline or something

would say, so-and-so in so-and-so's orchestra got busted, or whatever.

It was pretty sad, actually.

They sure make a nice story out of it.

She is singing a song which is her livelihood and she is making

her living, and then they walk up there and arrest her.

They did, they arrested me, they took me to jail.

I was in over the weekend or whatever,

and then I had to go to court, then they gave me six months.

I got a chance to see how the other people live.

You're never too close to anybody else.

They always keep you away, you're the celebrity,

"You can't see her, you can't talk to her,"

and I'm talking to all these people and they all got the same story.

"I didn't do it, Anita. I'm innocent."

They were all innocent, you know!

They gave me one month for good time, I had three to go,

so they pulled it, and a job to go to,

so that is two good things, so they let me out.

And I didn't do six months, what did I do? I did four months, right?

You'll get a different approach after a few days in jail.

It is something else, you know?

You were convicted several times on drug charges.

How difficult did that make it for you to get bookings in certain

-cities that had...?

-That helped, that's showbiz!

And that was part of it. Man, I'd work a club

and they'd be standing out down the street around the corner,

getting in to see the girl just got out of jail.

Yeah!

It's a strip joint is what it is. Drink and the strips come out,

not as far as today's but at that time.

And this elderly lady is the MC, who turned out to be Lenny Bruce's mother,

and then he got all these jokes going from that place

and I thought, I said to this person, "Where is the band?"

"Behind the curtain," and that is a real band going on.

But he could see through it, I mean the drummer.

I said, "I'd like to meet him.

"The girls don't dance but he catches every bop."

Like, if they go like that, he'd go bop.

They don't know what they are doing

but he knows enough to follow all that.

I said, "I want that drummer. He is going to be my drummer."

And he was for 30 years.

But John, this drummer, John Poole, I'd say, "Well, what do you do?

"You know, you don't drink, you don't smoke, what do you do?"

"Here's some heroin." "Oh, heroin. Hmmm."

He says, "You put it in the spoon and you put a little water

"and you put it into your vein." I says, "And you're doing that?"

He says, "Yeah, I been doing it a long time,

"I'm really hung up on it."

And I said, "Well, I want to try it."

He says, "No, I'm not going to be the one to turn you on, Anita.

"I don't want to be the one to start you

"into that bad, going down the hill routine."

I said, "Oh, well, I'll stop drinking,

"and I wouldn't have the mixture." And he's, "No."

And then one day he got kind of high and everything and he says,

"OK, I'll give you two drops."

Now the spoon handles about ten if you take them slow

and he does it that way, he takes it up to about that much.

So does Charlie Parker. When we met him one day he says,

"You want to turn on, John?"

Because everybody knew John was a turn on, you know.

They didn't know about me, I was just around.

And so he takes all this but two drops, puts it in the spoon,

and I'm looking at him

and I'm saying, "Hey, that's better than a martini.

"Hey, that's better than sex. Hey, I kind of like that, yeah.

"When are you going again?

He says, "Give me 20 and I'll go now."

So every day, I gave him 20 and we both got into it, you know?

Now we're both smiling and swinging and playing.

One, two, three, four, five.

# Picture me upon your knee A tea for two, two for tea

# Can't you see how happy we could be... #

ANITA SCATS

My God, what a perfect marriage, you know.

I'm not romanticising it, but heroin and jazz that way, because jazz

is all about trying to completely... At least if you're, you know,

if you're improvising or bebop, completely trying to free yourself.

ANITA SCATS

# ..Me to make a sugar cake for you to take for all the boys to see

# Raise a family A boy for you, a girl for me

# Now can't you see how happy we could be?

# Picture me upon your knee with tea for two and two for tea

# Now can't you see how happy we could be?

# Nobody near us To see us or hear us

# No friends relations on vacations

# We won't have it known We own a telephone dear

# Day will break and you'll awake For me to bake a sugar cake

# For you to take for all the boys to see

# Raise a family A boy for you a girl for me

# Can't you see how happy we could be? #

When she said she got on drugs, that she was singing faster

and was free and...

like, she opened her hands and opened her heart

and out came better things than she had ever done.

She was happy. She was free.

ANITA SCATS

Everything that Anita does is so great.

Tea For Two, Honeysuckle Rose, Georgia Brown -

those kind of vehicles for her rhythmic exhibitionism,

you might say, because, I mean, she's got a very pretty voice

but the whole crux, you know, the whole, sort of, nexus

of what she does is what she does with time.

And she's just got amazingly swinging time.

ANITA SCATS

# Me to bake a sugar cake for you to take for all the boys to see

# We'll raise a family A boy for you, a girl for me

# Now can't you see how happy we could be?

# Can't you see

# How happy we

# Could be

# We three? #

I was living in a small apartment on the beach

and she and John moved in next door.

On Sunday mornings,

I'd be wakened at dawn by the sound of a motor scooter.

And their connection was arriving on a motor scooter.

He would get off, walk in this little dividing area

between the buildings, there was a ladder, put a ladder up and walk up

the ladder and make his delivery through their bedroom window.

John and Anita both, at different times, would go into South Central

and really run very risky trips, and they pulled it off.

But that was, to me, like the ideal of living at the beach,

to have your connection come on a motor scooter

and delivered to your bedroom window.

We can fantasise about living that kind of on-the-road existence,

but very few of us

will ever do what Anita O'Day has done every day of her life.

The question was would she have done better if she had had better

management along the way? I don't think that that would have

helped because I don't think that Anita was manageable, as such.

Anita had her own opinions about everything

and I probably got along with her better than anyone

because she liked me and I was a jazz drummer.

I think that's why John Poole allowed her to sign with me,

because I was a drummer.

She was making 2,500 a week playing clubs at that time.

# I'm travelling light... #

She says, "You're going to live on the 2,500 a week

"you're making in the clubs."

# ..Because my man has gone... #

"At the end of two years, if it goes three years, you'll have some

"money when it's over, for the first time in your life."

# ..I'm travelling light... #

At the end of three years, she came by my house to borrow two bucks

for gas money so she could keep going.

# ..And took my heart away

# So from today

# I'm travelling light... #

Care to speculate what happened to all that dough?

I don't think it requires speculation.

I think there was probably a great deal of it that went into her

left arm and some into her right arm.

And...some into the care and maintenance of John Poole.

# ..No-one but me

# And my memories

# Some lucky night

# He may come back again

# But until then

# I'm travelling light... #

There's an awful lot going on underneath the surface that

catches your attention because it's mysterious, it's restrained

and because it's kind of secret.

And she has that quality to this, to this day.

# ..I'm travelling light

# I'm travelling light

# I'm travelling light

# I'm travelling light. #

You know, when you think of the ultimate, really, really great,

especially female jazz singers, you know,

I would think that Anita is the only white woman that belongs in

the same breath as Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughn.

We had a lot of black female singers like Sarah Vaughn and, of course,

Ella Fitzgerald but Anita O'Day was right there with them in that class.

It doesn't matter what colour you are, if you don't have the

feeling to play the jazz, because it's the feeling...

that's one of the biggest things you've got to get in there.

Another thing, singing in the Apollo Theater -

very few whites sing there, very few whites play there.

She could go in there and sing, you know...

she's got it.

She's got it, I mean, she's got that feeling.

I think it's interesting that not that many people do know that

Anita O'Day was the first vocalist recorded for Verve Records,

before Billie Holiday, definitely before Ella Fitzgerald.

I told you that he was playing tennis with the guy

and the guy said, "What do you do?"

And he says, "I own a record company," and he said, back to him,

he says, "Well, I am an arranger from Chicago." And he says,

"Come up to the office, I have a couple of people - you can have your choice."

He picked me from Chicago

and that is how I got to go with Buddy Bregman.

And I said, "Well, there's no-one I can work with here."

You can't record Dizzy Gillespie in a pop song.

So there's one name there that I recognise because this person,

when I was 11 years old, my brother and I saw Stan Kenton's band,

they came to our club in Chicago.

The lady who was singing with them was named Anita O'Day

and I said, "You have her name there."

And I said, "She also went to my high school."

The only thing I can think that's even near something pop, pop-ish,

jazz-oriented pop would be her.

He said, "OK, but don't spend too much money

"because she doesn't sell any records."

So we sold 365,000 albums.

Every tune was a hit. It wasn't, "Hey, turn it over on side two.

"Boy, you'll love take four." It wasn't one of those,

it was like all six on each side was impeccable.

Well, now she sprinkles the old Honeysuckle Rose with

a dash of atomic energy.

# Every honey bee fills with jealousy

# When they see you out with me

# I don't blame them Goodness knows

# Honeysuckle Rose

# Flowers droop and sigh When you're passing by

# And I know the reason why

# You're much sweeter Goodness knows

# And you are my Honeysuckle Rose... #

She asked me if I knew how to play Honeysuckle Rose,

and I said, "Yeah, sure. I can play it."

And I was playing in the key of C and she said, "Nope,

"that's too high, play it in B."

I said, "I can't play in B, I can't think in B.

"But I'll try B flat."

And, "No, no, no, no, it's too low.

"Can't you play it in B?"

"I said, "Well, let me try it this way." I said, "Let me try it."

And I just turned my body this way and played sideways

and stayed in the same key and she said, "That's it."

# ..Fills with jealousy

# When they see you out with me

# I don't blame them Goodness knows

# Honey

# Flowers droop and sigh When you're passing by

# And I know the reason why

# You're my sweet and goodness knows

# Honey, honey

# I don't buy sugar

# You just have to touch my cup

# You're my sugar

# So sweet when you stir it up

# On the avenue People look at you

# And I know just why they do

# Goodness knows

# Honey

# Every honey bee fills with jealousy

# When they see you out with me

# Well I don't blame them Goodness knows

# A Honeysuckle Rose

# Flowers droop and sigh When you're passing by

# I know the reason why

# You're much sweeter Goodness knows

# Honeysuckle Rose

# I don't buy sugar

# You just have to touch my cup

# My sugar

# So sweet when you stir it up

# On the avenue People look at you

# And I know just why they do it

# Goodness knows

# You're my honey Honeysuckle Rose

# You're my honey

# Honey, honey

# You're my Honeysuckle Rose. #

I had to have 12 tunes to do with Oscar Peterson.

And I lost 12 races,

because usually I like to come in just under the line

in front of people... and the band plays...

# Dah-dah-dah-dah-dah. #

But with him I come in the last on every tune

because he is a fast player,

and while he is singing the song and I'm singing the song,

all of a sudden he goes... And he was like winning all 12 tunes.

She can sing like Oscar Peterson plays, you know, just at that fast

and you can still follow the melody and

still everything is absolutely clear to you, you know, every word,

which is an amazing thing to be able to do, you know,

you couldn't talk that fast. Nobody could.

Without words... Oh, no, that's very confusing because after all

Anita O'Day is going to vocalise with Les Brown and his boys on

a number originally written for four saxophones entitled Four Brothers.

Two, three, four.

ANITA SCATS

I said, "What kind of piece of music is this?"

And I look at it and it is in my key and it has no lyrics

and there's a little note attached and he says, "This is the lead

"and you have harmony of four guys behind you,"

whichever they decided to use. They decided to use saxophones.

I took the part of one saxophone player

and the other three played harmony and I had the melody.

SHE SCATS

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Billy May was the trumpet player in the band.

Next thing I know he is this great arranger. Beautiful.

When that was passed on and I was to sing that, I couldn't quite

believe me singing Johnny One Note,

to say, "Ahhhh! Johnny One Note," and hold the note.

I was so inspired by the background,

I said, "It is my job to hold the note, and I did.

She was a great artist. Real talent.

One of the real jazz singers.

She could improvise and she sang such wonderful creative phrases.

To me, the important thing about a singer is not their sound,

but first of all, they've got to sing the meaning of the lyric.

They have to be an actress and sing with feeling.

ANITA'S RECORD PLAYS

Oh, that's a great tune.

# ..Yet it's uncomfortably near... #

Anita and Billie Holiday knew how to sing with feeling, didn't they?

She'd been a big favourite of mine

since I was a kid from her days with Krupa.

In our meeting she said, "I'm not a singer,

"I'm a song stylist."

She wanted that understood.

She might have been sometimes too hardboiled for some people,

you know, but I always dug it.

She's got quite an ear for intricate arrangements.

So it took quite a while to get her, to get her ideas down

because she doesn't write anything down, she just would sing her ideas.

We were totally at her mercy.

Gary McFarland. Wasn't that a beautiful set? And a tragic ending.

This man was so young and if you listen to the way he arranges and

everything is in the right place. You say,

"That should have been heard there," and he did it.

And he was very young and I was working in San Francisco,

everybody worked it, it is called the Jazz Street, Chinatown,

and every door was a jazz room.

At the end of the street was the San Francisco Jazz Room,

a big band could come through - Ellington, you know, anybody.

He comes to town and I am working across the street.

He comes over and says, "Hi, Anita.

"I got the music you wanted, come over and sing our arrangements."

So I took a break, I went over there,

I did a couple of the tunes that we had done and I don't know,

no big deal because all across the street, whatever...

It was beautiful. Nice fun. I was happy for him and shook his hand.

The next thing you know, this is like, say,

a Monday, and like, Thursday,

he took an OD and died.

It was the first hit he had ever had,

his first big opportunity and he was great.

The OD got him. That was a very short...

He could have done much, much more. A lot of arrangements like this.

I prefer his to many others but he is not around any more.

Got to watch that stuff, you know. That is the stuff you have to watch.

I, right away, marked her in my mind as a free soul.

She is a free soul, she's always been.

She just sang her butt off. She sounded wonderful on it.

"Something begins to run upstream

"and this is just some kind of a dream,

"I wouldn't be surprised because didn't you fall in love with me?"

Nice story.

It's not about notes or... It's not about effects or any of that.

It's about, you get into the song and make it live.

2002 we put together a collection of ten of our top female vocalists

into something called the Diva Series,

and artists like Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughn,

and we included Anita O'Day in that series

because she is obviously one of our most important vocalists.

It was like daydreaming.

And I said, "I'd like to make a movie before I'm 30."

Jazz On A Summer's Day. Yes, I didn't even know they were filming.

They catch me coming up to the step to enter the stage

and I step in a puddle, so my glass slipper goes into the puddle.

It shows me shaking my leg like this and I am dressed to the hilt

with a hat on to boot, and that was my entrance.

I presented Anita in the afternoon and she wore this wonderful hat.

And a black and white dress,

she was dressed perfectly for Newport summer day,

it was as if she had been born there.

I went in the day before the show and I said to Norman,

"What night am I on?" He says, "You are on Sunday afternoon."

I say, "Gee, thanks a lot(!)"

You know, so I go home and I lie down, and I am lying there

and all of a sudden I got this picture.

I went across the street to a dumb dress shop,

right across the street from this place where we were staying.

I picked out a frock, she says,

"I'll just take it in little bit for you." I says, "Nice."

I had glass slippers, OK?

I had little white gloves.

I said, "Gee, I'll just put my hair up. You got a hat?"

She comes out with a big straw hat with real ostrich feathers.

I was on at 4:50pm. I am dressed like the girl going to the

5 o'clock tea party.

I would swing my camera around in different moments

when something was going on, we couldn't shoot, say.

And I would look for people in the audience who were interesting -

the ice cream girl,

and my girlfriend, Dorothy.

# ..No gal made

# Got a shade on

# Georgia Brown

# Two left feet Oh so neat

# Georgia Brown... #

I happened to be on camera at the time,

so I shot all the footage of her.

And there was something about her that was just magical.

# ..Georgia Brown I'll tell you just why... #

I mean, I liked what she did, it was very exciting, so my feelings

for it were probably expressed in the way I shot it,

because I was very connected to her visually.

# ..She knocks them dead

# When she lands in town

# Since she came It's a shame

# How she cools them down... #

Would you have used drugs that day or would you wait until afterwards?

How does that work?

It doesn't go by day, it goes by hours.

It is a matter of how many hours.

You would have used some that day then?

I would say yes.

# ..Sweet Georgia Brown

# Doo-bee-bup Sweet Georgia Brown

# They all sigh, want to die for sweet Georgia Brown

# Tell you just why No, I don't lie

# Since she came It's a shame

# How she cools them down

# It's been said she knocks them dead

# When she lands in town

# The fellas she can't get

# Are fellas this girl has never met

# Georgia...

# Sweet...

# Georgia Brown. #

She sang Sweet Georgia Brown,

was one of the greatest vocal performances you ever heard.

That was the day she really did it, and knocked me out.

My estimation, her rendition, which has nothing to do with

the arrangement of Sweet Georgia Brown,

is absolutely as good as any jazz vocal ever, ever recorded.

That was the biggest thing to happen to me in my life.

That was the big event.

There were 150 musicians at this event

and out of all those people, male and female, there was

my picture in the Time magazine and nobody else was mentioned

and everybody you could name was in that show.

Japan picked me out and gave me a job where I made some money

because they pay big money.

Thank you very kindly.

It is wonderful being here in Japan and doing a television show

for everyone here.

# Love for sale

# Appetising young love for sale

# Love that's fresh and still unspoiled

# Love that is only slightly soiled

# Love for sale... #

One night after a set at the Half Note, Anita O'Day says,

"You know, I'm going to catch some air and walk around instead of

"staying in here and hanging out with the customers during the set break."

And Mike Camarino said, "OK."

Five years later,

she called him collect from the Philippines to borrow a grand

to get back to the States, and bless his heart he gave it to her.

# ..I came through the mill of love Old love, new love

# Every kind of love but true love

# Love for sale

# Appetising young love for sale

# If you want to buy my wares Follow me and climb the stairs

# Love for sale... #

# ..Love that is fresh and still unspoiled

# Love that's only slightly soiled

# Love for sale

# Who will buy?

# Who would like to sample my supply?

# Who's prepared to pay the price

# For a trip to paradise?

# Love for sale

# Let the poets pipe of love in their childish way

# I know every type of love far better than they

# If you want the thrill of love

# I have been through the mill of love

# Oh, love

# Oh, love

# Every kind of love but true love

# Love

# For sale

# Appetising young love for sale

# If you want to buy my wares Follow me and climb the stairs

# Love...

# For sale. #

You were once pronounced mental... No, what am I trying to say?

Legally dead?

-What's that all about?

-SHE LAUGHS

When you arrive DOA

and they put the sheet over you, that is legally dead.

-What had happened?

-I had a heart attack.

And then some doctor comes running in and says, "Wait a minute,

"let's try this new contraption or something,"

and they throw the sheet off you and you come to, and this thing

is down here, bringing back your breathing and you are on your feet.

Now they think you've had a heart attack, see?

So when everybody leaves the room, you kind of get up like this,

grab your clothes and start to leave and the nurse comes screaming in,

"Wait a minute! You've had a heart attack, lay down in bed!"

In reality, it was just an OD at that time.

-It was an

-OD? Yeah.

Could you work well on the hard stuff?

You really are not aware...

It's an anaesthetic, you are really not aware if you are working or not.

Billie, at the end, they used to just lead her to the band, push her up on the stand.

-And instinct took over?

-Yeah, more or less.

I got down to about 101lb,

so I just literally ran out of energy.

I knew Bird very well and I knew Lady very well.

They had constitutions. They were strong.

I was lucky I got out. Miles couldn't get out.

Charlie Parker couldn't get out. Billie Holliday could get out.

Even though they might have been a great,

they did not have the judgement to know when to stop.

That is what it is all about. Not knowing when to stop.

You are spending 12 hours a day waiting for the guy on the corner.

That is a lot of time.

I was in it for 16 years, I didn't even realise it. Time passed me by.

"I'm into this so long, I have to get out of this thing.

"I can't get out." And you would say, "I have to get out today."

I was drawn to what I really perceived as being someone with a lot of courage.

I mean, I would go over there sometimes

and I mean she'd look really not great.

There were times that she would weep.

And...it's like there was nothing to say.

You could just...

only just hold her in that kind of pain that she was experiencing.

How did you finally quit?

I had a huge OD

and I said, "I think my body is trying to tell me something."

You've heard that one, haven't you?

So I survived that one, which was a heavy one.

I just took myself to Hawaii and the story like I told it was...

And then you get the chills and the shakes, you know?

No, I don't know, but I've seen the movies.

I've heard about it and seen the movie representations.

When you get the cold shakes laying in that hot sun in Hawaii

on the sand, which is so warm.

Then you perspire, the sweats, you just jump in the water.

I was there early, I am up there eight, nine o'clock,

the sun is just coming up and I am doing that routine.

I did five months, never missed a day.

You have to have something to do because when the thought

comes around again, you have to have something to cover the thought.

What is better than jumping into the water that is up to here

and the sun is shining and you just dabble, nobody's bugging you?

Now you get out there and you lay in the sun for 12 hours, which

I shouldn't have done. I have a whole bunch of brown spots.

They didn't turn into cancer.

I am light skinned, I freckle galore like that and I was

so determined to quit the thing that I just stayed there in the sun.

It was the hardest thing I ever had to do.

I quit drinking, which was really hard too,

and whatever other little habits you might get, like cutting

your hair too much or whatever, just habits, habits, habits.

I can quit that. I can quit that.

It was hard to quit that, but what I went through to do it

deserved that much, so then I was free.

That's right.

Your personal experiences since then include rape, abortion, jail,

heroin addiction.

You have been reading my book High Times, Hard Times.

Yeah, I did, in fact, you made one comment in there, you said,

"All you can do in this world is learn how to be a good loser."

That sounds like a very embittered performer.

No, that is just the result of how it goes down

and what is wrong with that?

All you can learn to be a good loser. That keeps you smiling.

Can you smile about those times?

Well, it is in the past, I can smile about that.

And yet you beat them. Why did you beat them, why were you able to?

So many of your contemporaries got caught up in so many

of the same kind of problems and didn't make it.

That's a good question. Maybe I believe.

In those days you didn't.

I believed in something, I'm still here.

Well, it doesn't sound like a believer who comes out after

a marijuana bust when everybody says she was a junky,

and then comes out and says,

"Well, since they're calling me one, I'll be one."

Yeah, well, that is just the way it went down, Bryant.

A lot of times her personality was such that she kind of covered it.

She had a facade that everything's fine

and talkin' a little jive talk, and then she might be very down.

She referred to her spiritual leader as a god, the maker,

the man upstairs,

"He's given me a break," that sort of thing

and with a very solemn voice.

I'd like to take a second out to formally

introduce my percussionist who is not feeling too well this evening.

Hither or thither. We've been together 32 years this week.

That's a long time for a partner, yeah! Through four marriages.

I think John Poole was looking after her.

One of the big disappointments, he was on drugs,

got back on it. I think he hit her inadvertently out of frustration.

But that broke her heart.

She thought, "He's like my brother, how can he dare hit me?"

And that ended it just like that, it hurt her so much.

He recently died and I sure miss him, but I just lost my partner.

Well, what happened was I was living in a trailer

and I went out the back door, my puppy dog went out the back door,

and I tripped on five steps and fell on the concrete and broke my arm.

Now I am put into the hospital and they are fixing my arm

and they did it wrong, so they put me in another hospital

and they did that wrong and I got blood poisoning.

Then they put me in another hospital and I got pneumonia

and they put this thing over my face and nose and I said, "No."

He said, "Only eight minutes."

At my bed, the clock was right there,

came back in 30 minutes, burned my throat. I can hardly swallow,

I couldn't eat for a month, they had to put a hole in

my stomach and fed me up from this thing hanging down from up above.

Gook! It wasn't even real food. I got to 86lb

and all I had was a broken arm.

The hospital said, "She's got 72 hours to live."

And I'd go in and sit by her bedside and say, "Anita, can you hear me?"

And I'd take her hand and say, "Squeeze my hand if you can hear me."

And she'd squeeze it. I said, "I know you can hear me."

I said, "Anita, you don't dare die on me now, or on yourself."

I was in there from like '96, '97, '98.

I got into a home where you wheel yourself in, or they wheel you in,

for another year and now I am in a place where you can have walk outs,

you can hire a cab, go out and come back

and they serve three meals a day. It is very nice.

I have my own bed, records, I have company,

and I am singing one time a week, but the voice,

that was hard when they took my voice away to boot,

and all I had was a broken arm.

Folks, you might as well come on down and lose.

It is even better just to lose.

She has often said, "It's just my daily work, it's what I do,

"I go to work at night."

She would like you to think that it's...

it doesn't mean very much to her finally, punching the clock.

But if she's now in her 80s and still longing to sing

and longing to record and longing to rehearse,

then we know it means a little bit more to her than that.

The last time I saw Anita perform

was 2004, here in Manhattan at Iridium.

It's a performance I will not soon forget.

It was so off the wall in that particular Anita O'Day way.

And you just never knew what was going to happen next.

-Can I hear the melody?

-LAUGHTER

No? OK.

Oh, you're the one that plays the melody.

LAUGHTER

The audience was... First of all, the room was packed

and there were lots and lots of young people there.

Why they were there, where they came from, I don't know,

but I can tell you that they were really riveted.

Ms Anita O'Day! Yes!

She was singing her songs off of music, off of lyric sheets

because she can't remember words, but with

the words in front of her, she can really remember everything else.

# The way you're acting lately it makes me doubt... #

-I was in three keys.

-LAUGHTER

I think it's very brave.

I think it's... A lot of people wouldn't do that.

# ..Is you is or is you ain't my baby? #

I thought maybe, maybe she should throw in the shoes.

You know, and now that I've heard her new record,

I'm glad she didn't.

It'd make a nice follow up to Incomparable,

however many years later, about 40 years later?

Over 40 years later, to have another one called Indestructible?

# Blue skies smiling at me... #

What she's doing on this record she created,

that's something you can say of very, very few singers

in popular music history,

that nobody was doing that before she came along.

And continues to be able to bring those songs to life

and you can hear her story in those songs.

Anita's just recorded a brand-new CD aged 86.

She would love nothing more than to see you guys dance to a song from the new album.

# Don't talk too much

# Don't love too much

# Don't be too hip

# Because a slip of the lip might sink a ship... #

Thank you so much for all the music over the years. Thank you so much.

You know even on this date, remember when we was down there,

she told the piano player, "No, we're playing jazz,

"I want you to play, I want you to play."

I knew what she meant.

"This can't be love."

I've never heard anybody quite say it like hat.

And then all of a sudden, as is so often the case with Anita's music,

you'll think, "Oh, that's what that means.

She's a person that's really adventurous

where music is concerned.

She wants to move on,

like she's staying here all this time.

Me staying here in this business as an old man?

You know, I'm 87 years old.

You know, 87! I shouldn't kick about a thing.

"What a life I've had, huh?

"And I'm still trying to get more."

And it's the same thing, and I think that's beautiful.

There's a whole life in that voice.

I mean, what is more beautiful?

So yes, you're older, you're more mature,

you don't have the range that you had,

but it's a life.

# When you're in my arms

# And I feel you so close to me... #

When she sings The Nearness of You, she's so vulnerable

and she seems so sincere,

there's always that sincerity that Anita's work always had.

This is a quality that Anita has always prized in other artists.

# ..I need no soft lights

# To enchant me

# If you would only grant me

# The right

# To hold you ever so tight

# And to feel in the night

# The nearness

# Of you. #

This is a woman who was almost born singing

and who will die singing because there ain't nothing else.

As long as she wants to sing...

I'll be around to hear it.

So you played today, you don't worry about what has gone

because that has already gone and you can't bring what has gone back.

It doesn't happen that way, so every day is a new day and just

play it as it comes and I turned out to be a singer that was not on dope.

And this time we do a ballad. Ballad.

# How strange it was How sweet and strange

# There was never a dream to compare

# With that hazy, crazy night we met

# And the nightingale sang in Berkeley Square

# This heart of mine beat loud and fast

# Like a merry-go-round in a fair

# For we were dancing cheek to cheek

# And the nightingale sang in Berkeley Square

# When dawn came stealing up all gold and blue

# To interrupt

# Our rendezvous

# I still remember

# How you smiled and said

# Was that a dream or was it true?

# Our homeward step was just as light