With a seven-decade career, there’s much to cover in “Anita O’Day: The Life of A Jazz Singer,” co-directed by Ian McCrudden and O’Day’s manager Robbie Cavolina. In the age of hagiography, self-interest and look-at-this-family-footage filmmaking, this portrait of Anita O’Day, song stylist, is of greater than average interest but of lesser than theatrical scale. Some documentaries don’t belong in movie theaters. But some lives enthrall, with their messes and crashes and addictions and comebacks and never been gones. O’Day’s one of those. The clips of her youthful song prove it. Still, this overly busy film’s focus on certain elements, such as her three decades spent with her drummer and their bad habits, pull away from her dauntingly complicated gift. So do the uniformly chirpy testimonials by the assembled talking heads. O’Day sang into her waning days in her 80s and lovingly, that’s how “AOTLOAJZ” wiles away. 93m. (Ray Pride)
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