Helen Merrill • Helen Merrill EmArcy/Analogue Productions MG-36006
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collectable jazz records have remained beyond my grasp over the last several decades, but
this is one of them. The original has always been an extremely rare and incredibly
expensive LP. If you’ve seen a copy selling for less than $1000 in the last couple of
decades, it was in less than desirable condition or was not an original. I had the
privilege of listening to someone else’s copy once, but I could never bring myself to
spend so much on an LP, making do with reissues.
Although Helen Merrill developed a following in Europe and even more so in Japan, her name is hardly known even to well-versed jazz fans in the US. That is remarkable when you consider that she often recorded alongside major jazz musicians and released about fifty albums. In a 1994 interview, she was complimented on her youthful looks. She responded, half in jest, that she kept herself looking young because she had not yet been discovered and had to keep her youth in case it happened one day. Merrill was born in 1930 in New York City to Croatian-immigrant parents. She became a professional musician at the age of 16. The first time she sat in with a band, as a teenager, Bud Powell was playing piano. She befriended Miles Davis and Charlie Parker as a teenager and in 1951 joined the Earl Hines band, where she shared the spotlight as a singer with Etta James. In 1953, she recorded two singles for the Roost label, which led to her being signed by EmArcy, where she recorded five albums. EmArcy was formed in 1954 as an offshoot of American Mercury Records, to compete with Verve. The earliest EmArcy releases were recorded in 1953 and the label's initial stable of performers consisted of Max Roach, Clifford Brown, Dinah Washington, and a few others. Helen Merrill’s first release was the sixth record in EmArcy’s discography and famously includes Clifford Brown on trumpet. Quincy Jones conducted and did the arrangements. In December of 1954, when the sessions were recorded, Jones was 21, Merrill and Brown each 23. Clifford Brown died in an automobile accident a year and a half later, but both Jones and Merrill lived long and productive lives. Merrill had a reserved and not very showy stage presence and never hit it big with audiences in the United States. In Europe, where she lived for a while, she became very popular, and in Japan she continues to have an almost cult-like following. The seven well-known jazz standards included here are all ballads that would have been very familiar to listeners of the 1950s: "Don’t Explain," "You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To," "What’s New?," "Falling In Love With Love," "Yesterdays," "Born To Be Blue" and "‘S Wonderful." These ballads all stress loneliness and longing, which suit Merrill’s style. Like Miles Davis's, Merrill’s instrument caresses the notes and floats around them. Like Miles Davis, she knew when not to sing, leaving space to be filled in by the listener’s imagination. Clifford Brown, probably the most acclaimed jazz instrumentalist in 1954, acts as the perfect foil. He had already recorded with Sarah Vaughan and Dinah Washington, and here he supplies the hot to Merrill’s cool. His technical prowess is on display and he plays quick runs of notes with remarkable delicacy. The rhythm section mostly supplies support for these two stars, although Barry Galbraith’s guitar occasionally steps out from the crowd. Jimmy Jones plays piano throughout, and Danny Bank supplies fill on flute and baritone sax. Milt Hinton and Osie Johnson are replaced on bass and drums in the second session by Oscar Pettiford and Bobby Donaldson. The sessions were recorded by Robert Fine of Fine Sound. Fine recorded for Mercury Records throughout the 1950s, although he lost his original studio facility in 1956. Under the name Fine Recording, he became famous for his Mercury Living Presence stereo recordings during the late 1950s and into the 1960s. The recordings for Helen Merrill, made in two sessions on either side of Christmas 1954, are in mono, but the lack of a second channel requires no apology. The soundstage is wide and deep. If I must find nits to pick, the worst is that Pettiford’s bass seems better placed to the microphone after Christmas than at the earlier session with Hinton. It’s a plush, close-miked recording that perfectly suits Merrill’s style, and I can’t think of a Clifford Brown recording where his horn sounds better. Kevin Gray remastered from the original tapes. While I don’t have an original pressing with a blue-print back cover for comparison, I do have reissues as well as originals of other EmArcy LPs from the same period. What these tell me is that the tapes are in excellent shape and that this is as good as early EmArcy can sound, which is very, very good. The packaging is a tip-on jacket from Stoughton Printing. Unlike the original, it is a gatefold with session photos on the inside. An insert includes a bit of history about Robert Fine as well as detailed sessions notes. The pressing is a 200-gram slab of vinyl from Quality Record Pressing -- enough said. This is a great reissue that, for all intents and
purposes, is the only choice for serious listening. The original is priced out of reach
for all but the wealthy. Although there were, once upon a time, UHQCD and SHM-SACD issues
from Japan, those are out of print. For anyone who has complained that record companies
just reissue the same dozen titles repeatedly, this is the exception to the rule and an
opportunity to step up and walk your talk. |
