Anita O'Day Essentials

Uncompromising jazz diva Anita O'Day was hip and knew it. It's in her voice—a husky, lilting thing of rhythmic precision she deployed with shrewd wit in performances like her driving, scatting "Tea for Two." Her stint with drummer Gene Krupa's big band in the early '40s produced "Let Me Off Uptown," a sassy, then-rare interracial duet with trumpeter Roy Eldridge. O'Day delivered definitive pop versions of "Sweet Georgia Brown" and "Honeysuckle Rose" as well as dreamy-yet-convincing ballads such as "The Ballad of the Sad Young Men" and "The Party's Over,” retaining her where-the-action-is attitude throughout her career.