Yeah, you got Lady Day and Ella and Sarah, the triumverate of jazz singers. Don’t get better that.
But then there’s Anita O’Day.
She went out on her own at 14 years of age, during the Depression, was a dancer in the “endurathons” popular at the time, had a wild young life and fell into singing, ending up making her name with Gene Krupa, Roy Eldridge, the girl singer, sometimes wearing the usual evening gowns, other times an altered kind of suit that took better the knocks of the hard tours on bus or car.
She lived the jazz life.