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Helen Merrill

Helen Merrill was born on July 21, 1929, in New York City. She is a first generation American, her parents immigrated from what is now known as Croatia. She began singing as a teenager in the late 1940s. In 1951, she was a vocalist with the Earl Hines band. She recorded two songs on the Roost label in 1953, ‘My Funny Valentine’ and ‘The More I See You’, which mark the beginning of her long recording career. These recordings led to her being signed to a contract on the newly launched EmArcy label of Mercury Records. The first single released by EmArcy Records (EmArcy 16000) was by Helen Merrill. She recorded five albums for EmArcy from 1954-1958. Her debut album, “Helen Merrill” has never been out of print. Her recordings of this period were with highly regarded and talented musicians including Clifford Brown, Barry Galbriath, Frank Wess, Marian McPartland, Bill Evans, Quincy Jones, Hal Mooney, Gil Evans, Milt Hinton, and Osie Johnson.

In 1959, she moved to Europe where she continued to record and perform. The move exposed her to a greater world-view and her music began to reveal this, recording several folk songs on the 1964 album “The Artisrtry of Helen Merrill”. In the early 1960s she made her first tour of Japan as a musician. This would have a major influence on her career later. In the mid-1960s she collaborated with Dick Katz on two memorable albums “The Feeling Is Mutual “and “A Shade of Difference.” Both of these albums are striking in the creativity of all the musicians involved. Besides Mr. Katz these included Thad Jones, Jim Hall, Ron Carter, Arnie Wise, Hubert Laws, Gary Bartz, Richard Davis, Elvin Jones, and Pete LaRoca. Moving to Japan in the late 1960s, due to her husband’s career, she recorded several albums for the Japanese Victor label working with Japanese musicians including Sadao Wantanabe, Norio Maeda, Masahiko Satoh, Takeshi Inomata, and Hozan Yamamoto. Two of these albums included collaborations with American musicians Teddy Wilson and Gary Peacock. While residing in Japan she also hosted a program for a Tokyo radio station.

Miss Merrill returned to live in the United States in the mid-1970s. Her first recording upon her return was the 1976 album, “Helen Merrill/John Lewis”. It was nominated for a Grammy award as was her 1980 album “Chasin’ The Bird’. In the late 1970s she took on a new role as the producer for albums by pianists Tommy Flannagan, Roland Hanna, Al Haig, and Dutch vocalist Ann Burton.

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396
Multiple Reviews

Helen Merrill: The Helen Merrill-Dick Katz Sessions and Casa Forte

Read "Helen Merrill: The Helen Merrill-Dick Katz Sessions and Casa Forte" reviewed by Samuel Chell


Music-making, from conception to realization, is contaminated by the rhetoric of personality. And even more than instrumental music, vocal performances are often poorly served by language focused on the desires and disappointments, frustrations and satisfactions of the artist's “self" rather than on the “art." But quite apart from the self-expression (since the Romantic era, a birthright of every child) that inescapably clings to the creative process, what remains is something new that has come into being--a creation, moreover, that is ...

267
Album Review

Helen Merrill: Complete Recordings with Clifford Brown

Read "Complete Recordings with Clifford Brown" reviewed by David Rickert


Many people are familiar with Clifford Brown's collaboration with Sarah Vaughan, which many consider to be a classic. Far less well-known is his record with singer Helen Merrill for Emarcy from 1954, which features a similar set up and feel. Merrill has always been on the second tier of jazz singers as far as popularity is concerned, but is a reliable performer who can turn out enchanting performances. She's the type of singer whom many would simply put in front ...

1,021
Interview

Helen Merrill: 60 Years of Warm Sweet Songs

Read "Helen Merrill: 60 Years of Warm Sweet Songs" reviewed by Joao Moreira dos Santos


One of the most distinctive jazz singers ever, Helen Merrill started singing professionally sixty years ago when her warm voice paired with the Reggie Childs Orchestra in 1946. But that was just the start of a long and vivid story which would lead the talented young daughter of Croatian immigrants to make history in jazz by recording with [trumpeter] Clifford Brown and [arranger/bandleader] Gil Evans in the 1950s. A story which includes the opportunity of sharing the stage with luminaries ...

363
Multiple Reviews

Helen Merrill: Lilac Wine; Andrea Wolper: The Small Hours

Read "Helen Merrill: Lilac Wine; Andrea Wolper: The Small Hours" reviewed by Andrew Velez


Helen Merrill Lilac Wine Sunnyside 2005

Listen carefully to Helen Merrill's phrasing as she revisits “Lilac Wine , a song she first recorded in the '50s. “...I think I'm ready for my love... It's her ever-so-delicate emphasis of “ready which makes the impassioned state she's in so clear. Always at her own particular pace and tempo, Merrill's ability to express emotional nuances is an essential element in the alluring mystery of her singing. It ...

383
Album Review

Helen Merrill: Music Makers

Read "Music Makers" reviewed by Michael P. Gladstone


Jazz vocalist Helen Merrill doesn't record that often and when she does, it is often an unpredictable session. For her last major label work in 2000, Jelena Ana Milcactic A.K.A. Helen Merrill, recorded music based upon her Croatian heritage; it was quite a project but somehow eluded me. Music Makers is a reissue of a 1986 session, originally on Sunnyside, with two unusual trios. Merrill appears with long-time accompanist Gordon Beck on piano and electric piano, plus either master violinist ...

238
Album Review

Helen Merrill: Jelena Ana Milcetic aka Helen Merrill

Read "Jelena Ana Milcetic aka Helen Merrill" reviewed by Mathew Bahl


There has never been a jazz vocal record quite like Jelena Ana Milcetic a.k.a. Helen Merrill. It is obvious from the very first track as the Lado Folk Dance and Music Ensemble of Croatia intone a movement from the liturgical cantata “Telo Kristusevo" against the backdrop of Terry Clarke's thundering drums. It is a prayer sung to God that resonates with all the beauty and mystery of an ancient Eastern European people. It is with the music of her ancestral ...

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Video / DVD

Helen Merrill and Bill Evans

Helen Merrill and Bill Evans

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

In February 1958, singer Helen Merrill recorded five tracks backed by Bill Evans, who was part of a superb quintet. The tracks would be their only studio recordings together. Evans would move on to the Miles Davis Quintet and Sextet that May and then form his own trio at year's end. Helen would spend 1958 and '59 recording jazz albums and touring before moving to Italy, where she'd spend the next four years. Helen and Evans were close friends. During ...

Video / DVD

Helen Merrill With Strings

Helen Merrill With Strings

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Between 1954 and 1957, singer Helen Merrill recorded five albums for Mercury's EmArcy division. Yesterday, while writing, I spent the day listening to all of them as well as a bunch of assorted tracks she recorded for the label. Perhaps the best known album of the bunch is Helen Merrill, which she made in December 1954 accompanied by the Clifford Brown Sextet. The second most popular EmArcy album is probably Dream of You, arranged by Gil Evans and recorded between ...

1

Interview

Interview: Helen Merrill on Billie

Interview: Helen Merrill on Billie

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Following my post yesterday about a private audio recording at YouTube of Helen Merrill and Billie Holiday singing a duet at a New York party in November 1956, I had to know what was going on at the time of the recording. Why were they together. Why was Holiday so intent on singing the ending twice with Helen? Who was on piano? It didn't sound like Leonard Feather. So I called Helen and we had a great chat about the ...

1

Recording

Helen Merrill: 'Parole E Musica'

Helen Merrill: 'Parole E Musica'

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Back in 1960, singer Helen Merrill had a bad romantic breakup and escaped to Rome. She was invited to record there by pianist Romano Mussolini, whom she had met at a jazz festival in Belgium. So she broke her Atlantic contract and moved to Italy, where she became a “little star." But, as Helen told me during an interview in 2009, she didn't know what to do with the stardom. During this two-year period of emotional grief and recuperation, Helen ...

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Helen Merrill

Jazz Musician of the Day: Helen Merrill

Source: Michael Ricci

All About Jazz is celebrating Helen Merrill's birthday today!

Helen Merrill\'s long history in jazz began with her first album on the Mercury Emarcy label arranged and produced by Quincy Jones in 1954 up to her latest CD album released in early 2000. In between were more then 50 Jazz albums and countless concerts, club dates, festivals and other jazz activities. Ms. Merrill was born in New York City. Her parents were Croatian immigrants and her most recent recording is ...

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Helen Merrill

Jazz Musician of the Day: Helen Merrill

Source: Michael Ricci

All About Jazz is celebrating Helen Merrill's birthday today!

Helen Merrill\'s long history in jazz began with her first album on the Mercury Emarcy label arranged and produced by Quincy Jones in 1954 up to her latest CD album released in early 2000. In between were more then 50 Jazz albums and countless concerts, club dates, festivals and other jazz activities. Ms. Merrill was born in New York City. Her parents were Croatian immigrants and her most recent recording is ...

124

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Helen Merrill

Jazz Musician of the Day: Helen Merrill

Source:

All About Jazz is celebrating Helen Merrill's birthday today!

Helen Merrill\'s long history in jazz began with her first album on the Mercury Emarcy label arranged and produced by Quincy Jones in 1954 up to her latest CD album released in early 2000. In between were more then 50 Jazz albums and countless concerts, club dates, festivals and other jazz activities. Ms. Merrill was born in New York City. Her parents were Croatian immigrants and her most recent recording is ...

106

257

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Helen Merrill

Jazz Musician of the Day: Helen Merrill

Source: Michael Ricci

All About Jazz is celebrating Helen Merrill's birthday today!

JAZZ MUSICIAN OF THE DAY Helen Merrill

Helen Merrill\'s long history in jazz began with her first album on the Mercury Emarcy label arranged and produced by Quincy Jones in 1954 up to her latest CD album released in early 2000... more

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157

Recording

Mosaic Singles: The Helen Merrill Dick Katz Sessions

Mosaic Singles: The Helen Merrill Dick Katz Sessions

Source: All About Jazz

"This music says so much, particularly in revealing the warmth these musicians feel for each other, their interest in experimentation, and their love of their craft. In their choice of fine songs, performed in new and different settings, they invite you to become involved. Listen, and you will understand and appreciate the shade of difference here." - Marian McPartland, liner notes In the '40s, Helen Merrill entered the professional ranks as a band singer, but soon was bitten by the ...

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