Anita O'Day died
Anita O'Day, who shot to fame as a singer with drummer Gene Krupa's swing band in the early 1940s and became one of the most distinctive voices in the history of jazz, died Thursday. She was 87.
O'Day died of cardiac arrest in a convalescent hospital in West Los Angeles, according to her manager, Robbie Cavalina. She had been in declining health battling Alzheimer's and had a recent bout with pneumonia.
Known as hip-talking, blunt and feisty, O'Day began her career as a teenager while competing on the Depression-era Walkathon circuit. She was still a relatively unknown singer in jazz joints in her native Chicago when Krupa hired her as his $40-a-week vocalist in 1941.
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source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/11/24/MNG0KMJ54G1.DTL&type=music
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![Anita O\](http://daz.com/img/00/00/00/5288.w180.jpg "Anita O\")
