About Me
One of the most distinctive jazz singers ever, Helen Merrill started singing professionally more than sixty years ago when her warm voice paired with the Reggie Childs Orchestra in 1946.
Helen Merrill's long recording career began with her first album on the Mercury Emarcy label arranged and produced by Quincy Jones in 1954 up to her latest CD album "Lilac Wine" released in 2004. In between were more than 50 jazz albums and countless concerts, club dates, festivals and other jazz activities.
The songs in the music player above span Ms. Merrill's entire recording career to date.
Ms. Merrill was born in New York City. Her parents were Croatian immigrants and one of her most recent recordings is titled "Jelena Ana Milcetic, AKA Helen Merrill" tracing her musical experience.
Ms. Merrill started her career at the 845 Club in the Bronx while still in high school. The promoter at the club was noted for his ability to spot young future stars. Among those appearing with Helen at the time were Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Oscar Pettiford, and numerous others. The name on the marquee was Helen Milcetic, her name which she later changed to Merrill.
Ms. Merrill entered the world of music just as the big band era was ending and the much more challenging field of working with small groups had begun. During these formative years she worked with Earl Hines, Charles Mingus, Thad Jones, Clifford Brown, Gil Evans, Charlie Byrd, Marian McPartland, Al Haig, Jim Hall, Elvin Jones, Ron Carter, Bill Evans, Stan Getz, and literally hundreds of other musicians.
"When I started singing in New York, many of the great jazz musicians were living there," Merrill recalls. "I was drawn to jazz because I felt the warmth, honesty of expression, and, above all, the spontaneity of the music."
Although she has made a large number of jazz albums and knows her way around recording studios in the United States, Japan and Europe, Ms. Merrill's recording career began in a non-commercial atmosphere in the now famous Rudy Van Gelder studio in New Jersey. She was accompanied by Jimmy Rainey, Don Elliot and Red Mitchell. The result was a single that eventually led to a contract with Mercury. Without much fanfare, Mercury released a jazz album titled simply "Helen Merrill".
It was an instant success and has remained so to this day, more then 50 years later. The album, including one of the most acclaimed versions of the song, "What's new?" has been reissued and repackaged scores of times on various labels around the world. Readers of the Japanese magazine FM radio voted the recording the best jazz album of the past 50 years.
Mercury quickly signed Ms. Merrill to a new contract calling for four additional jazz albums. That first album featured Jimmy Jones, piano; Clifford Brown, trumpet; Milt Hinton, bass; Oscar Pettiford, cello and bass; Barry Galbraith, guitar; and others. The songs were "Whets New?" "Don't explain" "Born to Be Blue" "You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To" "Falling In Love With Love" "Lilac Wine" and "Spring Will Be A Little Late This Year"
She recorded "Helen Merrill with Strings" for Mercury in 1955, "Dream of You" in 1956, "Merrill at Midnight" in 1957 and "Nearness of You" also in 1957.
Helen Merrill lived for a number of years in Europe and recorded jazz albums in Italy, France and Norway and did frequent concerts. She made a number of trips to Japan for concerts and recorded for Japan Victor. She eventually moved to Tokyo in 1967. She returned to New York in 1972 where she now lives, making annual concert tours in Japan and Europe.
Ms. Merrill recorded two jazz albums in New York which have had exceptional success throughout the jazz world. They were "The Feeling is Mutual" and "A Shade of Difference" with arrangements by Dick Katz, featuring Thad Jones, flugelhorn; Hubert Laws, flute; Jim Hall, guitar; Ron Carter and Richard Davis, bass; Elvin Jones, drums; Garry Bartz, saxophone. Ms. Merrill sings "A Lady Must Live" "My Funny Valentine" "Lonely Woman" "Where Do You Go?" and other jazz numbers. Both albums have been reissued on CD by Polygram on the Verve Label.
PolyGram also has reissued a boxed set of CDs of the first Mercury albums under the title "The Complete Helen Merrill on Mercury".
As a footnote to history, the late Leonard Feather, jazz historian and music critic for the Los Angeles Times, said in his book "The Book Of Jazz, From Then 'Till Now" (Dell), in discussing the gradual hiring of white musicians in black bands and hiring of blacks in previously all white orchestras, "...the most stubborn barrier of all, involving implicit defiance of the mongrelization taboo against which southern politicians had inveighed in the race for white votes, fell in 1952 when Helen Merrill, unmistakably blonde, sang for three month's with Earl Hines Sextet..."
Because of the subtlety of her singing, Ms. Merrill is often described as a member of jazz's Cool School. Like June Christy, Julie London, and Chris Connor, Helen Merrill is among the vocalists who defined cool jazz in the 1950s. Cool jazz was essentially bebop, but bebop played with subtlety and restraint rather than aggression. Ms. Merrill, of course, doesn't limit herself to any one style of jazz - whether she is embracing cool jazz, bop, swing, or post-bop, the vocalist insists on keeping an open mind.
"My life has been very rich filled with curiosity and love of humanity. I have always been a traveler in my mind and continue to be that. The best way to remain young is to continue to work. Never give up your dreams."
Ms. Merrill has recorded more than 50 albums. Her most recent recording is "Lilac Wine" (2004). She is gathering material for her next CD.
More than 150 Helen Merrill songs and albums are available on iTunes.
For detailed information please visit Ms. Merrill's website at helenmerrill.com.
This page is maintained by Bill Jacobs at Sonik Wheel Productions.
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