Best remembered for her appearance in Jazz on a Summer’s Day the film of the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival in which she sang Vincent Youmans’ ‘Tea for Two’ and ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’ O’Day was one of the most inventive jazz singers of the forties, singing in a husky, intimate way on ballads and an exciting, dramatic way on up-tempo numbers. She was also one of the first female singers to reject a pretty, decorative appearance. Dressed as often in a suit as in a dress, she projected the image of a professional musician. In the thirties, often in partnership with Frankie Laine, O’Day was a regular participant

in the dancing marathons and ‘walkathons’ then in vogue, in the course of which she first sang professionally. In 1939 she joined vibraphonist Max Miller’s trio as vocalist in 1941 replacing Irene Daye as the singer with Gene Krupa’s big band. While trumpeter Roy Eldridge was with the band, she recorded one of the first inter-racial duets with him, the exciting ‘Let Me Off Uptown’ in which her rhythmic phrasing perfectly matched the aggressive style of Eldridge. Her other great hits with Krupa were ‘That’s What You Think’ which featured her almost wordless vocal, and ‘Murder He Says’. In 1944, she joined Stan Kenton’s band and had an immediate hit with ‘And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine’, before briefly rejoining Krupa and then going solo.
   Relatively inactive for over a decade due to drug problems, O’Day found new popularity in the late fifties both on record and in performances in Europe. Throughout the sixties and seventies she continued to tour and record, those influenced by O’Day include June Christy, Julie London, and Chris Connor.