Anita O'Day

One of the pleasures, (apart from the weather), of living over here is the rich archive of programs that BBC 4 supply.
Yesterday I watched a piece on Anita O'Day the legendary jazz singer.
She rates right at the top with Ella Fitzgerald and Billy Holiday with a supreme control of rhythmic counter-play to the other instruments in the band. She pitched her voice, trippling up and down the scales, glissading like a slalom skier going to the edge and then at the last moment, changing direction to regain the backing group. When she sang with Oscar Peterson, who plays at a phenomenally fast tempo, O'Day matched the speed and virtuosity with her voice, they were like ice skaters duelling in perfect harmony (if that's not an oxymoron) and then returning to the musical theme.  
Black musicians like Ella have always prided themselves with a special insight into the songs they sing with that extra feeling, the pathos which, it is suggested the white musicians don't instinctively have. Anita O'Day, who is white, is right up there with them. Her voice, often projected from the back of her throat, as she throws the sound around in her vocal joust with the other musicians.
She sang for years with Stan Kenton, Duke Ellington and Gene Krupa, a period of magnificent big band jazz that, in my youth I was lucky to hear and see as the UK took advantage of the music unions lifting the ban on American musicians coming to England. We sat and marvelled at these greats performing in concert halls up and down the country. The Modern Jazz Quartet, Oscar Peterson and Ella, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk and so many more. We were mesmerised by the sound, the infectious spontaneity and creativity.The BBC 4 program brought it all back as they interlinked with each other tossing the shuttle back and forward between the vocalist the sax the trumpet, piano and drums.
Listen to O'Day, by using the superb catalogue of music that companies like Spotify provide, it makes the need for your own CD pretty superfluous.