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Anita O'Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer
  • Release Date: Aug 15, 2008
Metascore
76 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 12 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 12 out of 12
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 12
  3. Negative: 0 out of 12
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  1. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    90
    How was this careless, self-destructive human rhythm machine able to outlast almost all her peers? Maybe the vitality of the jazz she made kept her alive. She was one tough lady.
  2. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    88
    Here was a great artist. She enjoyed her life. She didn't complain at the time, she didn't complain when she went cold turkey, she didn't complain in her 80s.
  3. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Howard Reich
    88
    Swinging gleefully on a sun-soaked afternoon, crafting strangely intoxicating phrases, O'Day could do no wrong on that afternoon at the Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island in 1958.
  4. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Steven Rea
    88
    There's real joy in O'Day's eyes - and larynx - as she bobs and weaves through an amazing songbook.
  5. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: Robert Koehler
    83
    Although the documentary is something of a patchwork affair and lacks the late singer's ineffable smoothness and rhythmic brilliance, it emphatically makes the case that here was one of the four or five all-time great female jazz voices – or "song stylists," as she called herself.
  6. New York Post
    Reviewed by: V.A. Musetto
    75
    A high point shows O'Day, in a black-and-white hat and form-fitting dress, singing "Sweet Georgia Brown" at the Newport Jazz Festival. That scene alone confirms O'Day's place among the greats.
  7. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Joel Selvin
    75
    A loving biographical tribute.
  8. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Sura Wood
    70
    An engaging if less than revelatory documentary.
  9. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Jim Ridley
    70
    A good deal livelier than the usual music-doc embalming.
  10. Variety
    Reviewed by: Dennis Harvey
    70
    Force of personality and terrific vintage performance clips make a keeper of Anita O'Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer.
  11. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Rosenbaum
    70
    One of the few white vocalists to play the Apollo, O'Day does fabulous things with her hands as well as her voice when she sings. Her talent and will to survive (in the late 60s she kicked a 16-year heroin addiction) are reasons enough to see this film.
  12. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    63
    Offers what her fans came to expect from the "Jezebel of Jazz": great music.
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