Saw Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story at the Sydney Film Festival on Saturday. It was very good but this Internet cafe is charging $3 a half hour and with 11 minutes left I'm not going to tell you about it.

Here's the trailer, the headphones here don't work but I suppose it sounds good:

I first sought out jazz great and all round hoyden Anita O'Day ( real surname: Colton. As she explains in the movie O'Day is Pig Latin for "dough" - "and I wanted to make some!") earlier this year after picking up a remaindered copy of Da Capo Best Music Writing 2002 and reading Matthew C Duersten's article "The Moon Looks Down and Laughs: The wonderful, horrible jazz life of Anita O'Day." Jazz has never been my main thing but it seemed odd I had never even heard of her, especially as at the time of her 2006 death she was described as the "greatest living jazz singer" and one of the only deemed special enough to be spoken about next to Ella and Billie.

The doco on her which sceened at the Sydney Film Fest on the weekend (official trailer at YouTube here and a longer version here) was highly enjoyable, informative and lovingly done. I hope it makes its way to the telly so everyone can see it, and I can see it again. It covered her musical career - including the innovations she brought to the role of swing band "canary" and her unique singing style - plus her embrace of not just jazz music but "the jazz life." Early busts for marijuana got her tagged "The Jezebel of Jazz" (a boon for PR and ticket sales) and a long period of heroin addiction followed. This is an important part of the story but I'm glad it didn't dwell voyeuristically on other aspects of her personal life. I've ordered her autoiography High Times, Hard Times so I'll get the rundown then. Opening lines: "Getting pregnant while single was something I don't think my mother ever got over. That was a really heavy situation in 1919. Girls killed themselves, became prostitutes or got married and carried the guilt with them all their lives. Mom took the last route." Dad left and married ten more times after that.

Interspersed with excellent archival footage, comments from jazz musos, jazz critics and friends there is Anita herself on home video at about age 85 or 86 larger than life, hanging out at a dusty Californian racetrack, detailing Charlie Parker's prefered method of prepping dope, and narrating the improbable story of her survival. Footage of her smackdown of Bryant Gumble in an 80s interview brought cheers from the crowd. She's pretty much a full blown James M. Cain character, and loving it. That would be fun, but she also happens to be an endlessly fascinating and moving musician too. There's a lot of interest music talk in the doco, stuff about singing on the eights and vibratos and beats and whatnot which poor little me doesn't get fully, but there is much enlightenment. For instance how she would study each instrument's part until she could improvise each one. They feature this Four Brothers example, a piece written for four saxaphones but performed with three plus Anita. After rock and roll swept aside the jazz vocalists in the early 60s, she recorded and toured extensively in Japan through the 1970s and it's this period which I know best (because that era is on eMusic but the earlier Verve stuff isn't - still much exploring to be done.) She does a fantastic version of Leon Russell's "Song for You" on one of those records.

If I ever get my computer back I'll post a couple of my fave songs.

I'm going to see that Anita O'Day doco at the Sydney Film Festival this Sunday so check out some classic Anita at the Newport Folk Fest 1958:

Comment moderation is still on so please continue to leave comments but be patient about them appearing -- especially over the weekend as I am still without my beloved Mac at home. ;-( Most of my music listening is done via the computer, either the digital files or the inbuilt CD. Without it, the only CD player I have is the DVD which I haven't tried but I don't expect the TV speaker quality to be that great. I'm still going to try and pick up the new Emmylou Harris record today or tomorrow. Particularly keen to hear her version of Old Five and Dimers Like Me, one of the great country songs. I've also heard good things about the new Al Green record.

Go Socceroos! and hope you all have a good weekend.

The Sydney Film Festival has some enticing music related fare, as usual. I have my ticket to the Anita O'Day doco and Stax doco plus music, both at the Metro Theatre which seems to be called the Metro again after not being, for a while. I'm looking forward to those, but I'm not overly thrilled about paying $20 to see 90 minute films which hardly need to be seen on the big screen and will end up on ABC2 anyway in a month. So I'm giving Nick a miss. Sorry, Nick, don't hurt me but your movie is 52 minutes short long.

Also showing:
Great Australian Albums: Nick Cave "Murder Ballads"
Heavy Metal In Baghdad
Lou Reed's Berlin
Anvil! The Story of Anvil! and Sultan of Sin performance ("For some, heavy metal, spandex, hairspray and Jack Daniel's are a way of life.")
A Page of Madness (silent Japanese film with live musical accompaniment by ... it doesn't say)
Pete Seeger: The Power of Song
Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell

Yes I know the cinematic remakes of beloved 80s TVs shows thing is getting old but I am totally on board with this.