Anita ODay and the Three Sounds

Description

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 proceedings. 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.