1. Cavatina 
2. It Never Entered My Mind 
3. Just Friends 
4. It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing) 
5. Baby Ain't I Good To You 
6. It's Not Easy Being Green 
7. If You Go Away 
8. Yesterdays 
9. Music Maker

Personnel: 
Helen Merrill (vocals), 
Stan Getz (tenor saxophone),
Joachim Kuhn (piano), 
Torrie Zito (piano), 
Jean-Francois Jenny Clark (bass), 
Daniel Humair (drums).

Recognized as one of the country's great jazz singers, Helen Merrill is also one of the least known, except to aficionados. In this remarkable album from 1989, Merrill, then almost sixty years old, teams up with Stan Getz to record a stunning exhibition of improvisational jazz. Her mature voice is rich and powerful, but she retains a sweetness that allows her to be whispery, melancholy, pensive, or sexy without sounding "thin" or fragile. The timbre of Getz's sax blends perfectly with her alto to create a double-barreled melodic line, and their individual talents at improvisation lead to interpretations of immense creativity. The album is Merrill's, however, with Getz supporting but not overpowering her, remembering always that he is the talented guest on the album.

The songs encompass many moods. "Cavatina," written by Cleo Laine, is soft, slow, and wonderfully romantic, and Getz's variations build on the romance. "It Never Entered My Mind" shows Merrill's control, as she almost whispers the lyrics, creating a pensive, moody ballad with fresh sounds and interpretations. By contrast, "Just Friends" is upbeat and quick, and "It Don't Mean a Thing," an Ellington song, is wild and swingy, with a terrific piano solo (Joachim Kuhn) to continue the melodic variations introduced by Getz. "Baby, Ain't I Good to You" gets the slow, sexy treatment, while Jacques Brel's "If You Go Away," so often a song of agony and passion, is introduced by Getz's solo sax and becomes quiet and melancholy here, moodier and less threatening than most other interpretations.

The climax is "Yesterdays," a song so filled with improvisation that it is sometimes difficult to recognize the original melody. Merrill stays in the background here as Getz and bassist Jean-Francois Jenny-Clark go to town creating a fresh sound for this standard. Impeccable in its musical presentation and very dramatic in its originality, this album sets the standard for collaboration between two jazz stars who obviously respect each other and their medium--and it may be Merrill's best album.--- Mary Whipple (New England)

download (mp3 @320 kbs):

uploaded yandex 4shared mediafire mega solidfiles zalivalka cloudmailru filecloudio oboom

back

01 - People Will Say We're In Love 02:37
02 - By Myself 03:26
03 - Any Place I Hang My Hat Is Home 04:12
04 - I've Never Seen 03:35
05 - He Was Too Good To Me 03:04
06 - A New Town Is A Blue Town 03:12
07 - You're Lucky To Me 03:28
08 - Where Flamingos Fly 02:47
09 - Dream Of You 02:55
10 - I'm Fool To Want You 04:08
11 - I'm Just A Lucky So And So 03:10
12 - Troubled Waters 03:16
13 - Soft As Spring 03:16
14 - Black Is The Color Of My True Love's Hair 02:53
15 - Lazy Afternoon 03:10
16 - The Things We Did Last Summer 03:08
17 - After You, Who? 03:05
18 - If You Go 03:12
19 - If I Forget You 03:22
20 - If Love Were All 03:07
21 - Easy Come Easy Go 03:44
22 - I'll Be Around 02:45

Personnel: 
Helen Merrill (vocals); 
Jerome Richardson (alto & tenor saxophones, flute); 
John LaPorta (alto saxophone, clarinet); 
Danny Bank (baritone saxophone); 
Art Farmer, Louis Mucci (trumpets); 
Joe Bennett, Jimmy Cleveland (trombones); 
Janet Putnam (harp); 
Hank Jones (piano); 
Barry Galbraith (guitar); 
Oscar Pettiford (bass); 
Joe Morello (drums).

One thing that set Helen Merrill apart from other '50s jazz singers was her acutely dramatic vocal style. Her earnest phrasing, elongated notes and incandescent tone might even strike the contemporary listener as qualities more appropriate for the Broadway stage than a jazz club. On 1955's Dream of You, though, Merrill found reconciliation, sounding both melodramatic and swinging within Gil Evans' darkly spacious, yet economical arrangements. Suitably, torchy ballads are prominent. On the somewhat grandiose side there's "Where Flamingos Fly" and "I'm a Fool to Want You," which find Merrill in a pensive mood amidst a variety of tempo and timbre shifts. More subdued ground is covered on "I've Never Seen" and "He Was Too Good to Me." Briskly swinging numbers like "People Will Say We're In Love," "By Myself," and "You're Lucky to Me" balance the program and feature the demure, yet fluid delivery Merrill favored on fast numbers. What is most impressive on this date is a group of sultry, medium tempo numbers including "Anywhere I Lay My Hat Is Home," "Just a Lucky So and So," and in particular "A New Town Is a Blue Town." The programmatic quality of Merrill's coyly sensual voice and Evans' slightly askew, bubbling reeds and languid rhythm conjure up dramatic, balmy southern scenes á la Tennessee Williams. In the picturesque arrangements one also hears the seeds of Evans' own future collaborations with Miles Davis. In addition to the first 12 tracks that make up the original Dream of You album, the CD reissue includes numbers from a 1954 session arranged by Johnny Richard which feature ballads in the dramatic Merrill mode like "Alone Together" and "This Is My Night to Cry" in addition to the wistful "How's the World Treating You." If Merrill's distinct combination of June Christy's soaring intensity and Sarah Vaughan's flexibility is something you can not get enough of then indulge in The Complete Helen Merrill on Mercury (1954-1958) which covers her early recording period. If you just want a representative sample of her work at the time then get Dream of You. Even though her collaboration with Clifford Brown is a great recording, this one with Gil Evans shows off more of Merrill's expressive vocal talents due in no small part to the sympathetic and urbane arrangements. ---Stephen Cook, allmusic.com

download (mp3 @160 kbs):

uploaded ziddu yandex 4shared mediafire mega solidfiles zalivalka cloudmailru filecloudio oboom

back

1. Let it Be
2. Lady Madonna
3. Because
4. The Word
5. Norwegian Wood
6. Here There and Everywhere
7. Golden Slumbers
8. And I Love Him
9. In My Life
10. Mother Nature's Son
11. If I Fell
12. I Want You

Helen Merrill - Vocals 
Masahiko Sato - Piano, Arranger 
Yasuo Arakawa - Bass 
Takeshi Inomata -  Drums

Helen Merrill's dark, smoky voice and rangy interpretive powers gave her the opportunity to shine with many types of material; for this 1970 date she leads a small Japanese group celebrating the Lennon/McCartney canon, in an experiment that's not merely successful but immensely pleasurable. The material focuses on two distinct Beatles periods (1965-1966 and 1968-1969), and Merrill studiously avoids many of the standards that older artists were then latching onto. ("Something," the consummate Beatles standard for non-rock vocalists, is conspicuously absent.) Instead, Merrill dwells on McCartney and Lennon as masters of lyrical, introspective songcraft, choosing for her tribute the drowsy, contemplative songs "Here, There and Everywhere," "And I Love Him," "Let It Be," "Golden Slumbers," "In My Life," and so forth. Most of the versions are stretched out by her small band, nearly always for good; only "The Word" sounds downright embarrassing in a brassy, jazz-funk arrangement. It's always Merrill's performances, though, that make this record a success. One of vocal music's finest free-form interpreters, she records versions neither rote nor experimental, ones that remember the originals but add much to their feel and harmonics (always an important quality when you face the prospect of covering 12 of the most memorized performances in recording history). Really, no other jazz vocalist could survive -- and thrive -- like this: recording abstract arrangements of a rock songbook in Tokyo in 1970 with a band whose easily dateable arrangements occasionally threaten their talent. She even finds subtle ways to succeed with the straight-ahead rocker "Lady Madonna." ---John Bush, Rovi

download (mp3 @320 kbs):

uploaded yandex 4shared mega mediafire zalivalka cloudmailru oboom uplea

back

01. When I Fall in Love
02. You Don't Know Me
03. The Nearness of You
04. Lilac Wine
05. Comes Love
06. I'm Just a Lucky So-And-So
07. When the Sun Comes Out
08. All of You
09. Don't Explain
10. You Win Again
11. A New Town Is a Blue Town
12. Where Flamingos Fly
13. Summertime
14. Heart Full of Love
15. Anyplace I Hang My Head Is Home
16. Cold, Cold Heart
17. End of a Love Affair
18. Am I Blue
19. Mountain High, Valley Low
20. Born to Be Blue
21. I'm so Lonesome I Could Cry
22. Dream of You
23. The Things We Did Last Summer

A fine singer with a warm, expressive voice, Helen Merrill's infrequent recordings tend to be quite special with plenty of surprises and chance-taking. She started singing in public in 1944 and was with the Reggie Childs Orchestra during 1946-1947. Merrill, who was married for a period to clarinetist Aaron Sachs, had opportunities to sit in with some of the top modernists of the time, including Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and Bud Powell. She was with Earl Hines in 1952 and started recording regularly for EmArcy in 1954. Her collaboration with Clifford Brown was her first classic. She made several notable EmArcy albums during 1954-1958 (including one in 1956 that helped bring Gil Evans out of retirement); all have been reissued in a large box. After recording for Atco and Metrojazz in 1959, she moved to Italy for the next four years, touring often in Europe and Japan. Back in the U.S., Merrill teamed with pianist/arranger Dick Katz for a pair of notable and unpredictable Milestone dates (1967-1968) and then moved to Japan where she was quite popular. Helen Merrill returned to the United States in the mid-'70s and has since recorded for Inner City, Owl, EmArcy (including a reunion date with Gil Evans) Antilles, and Verve, which released her 2000 album Jelena Ana Milcetic a.k.a. Helen Merrill. ---Scott Yanow, Rovi

download (mp3 @320 kbs):

uploaded yandex 4shared mega mediafire zalivalka cloudmailru oboom uplea

back

1. You're my thrill
2. It don't mean a thing
3. Here's that rainy day		play
4. Baltimore Oriole
5. Don't explain		play
6. What is this thing called love?
7. The winter of my discontent
8. Day Dreams
9. Deep in a dream

Personnel:
Dick Katz - Piano
Ron Carter - Bass
Thad Jones - Cornet
Arnie Wise, Pete La Roca - Drums
Jim Hall – Guitar

Helen Merrill is the Frank Stella of jazz singing. But, as with Stella, minimalism should not be equated with nihility. Merrill’s cool, parched style is often wrongly dismissed as gray and vacant. But beneath that densely fogged patina lays a rainbow of expression and a jazz acumen as acute as Carmen McRae’s or Kurt Elling’s.

Unfortunately, though Merrill surely ranks among the finest and most perceptive American vocalists of the past half-century, with nearly 50 albums to her credit, she has fared dismally in terms of domestic reissues. Yes, Mercury Records admirably assembled her entire EmArcy output from the mid- and late-’50s—five albums that placed her in the company of Clifford Brown, Gil Evans, Milt Hinton, Kenny Dorham and Jimmy Jones—in a four-disc box, but that set is now out of print. And yes, several of the superb discs she released on various labels throughout the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s have surfaced in Japan and Europe, but most are now either unavailable or restrictively expensive.

So kudos to Mosaic for making a small but very welcome dip into the Merrill catalog. The single-disc Helen Merrill-Dick Katz Sessions combines two of her best from the latter half of the 1960s, both fashioned in New York by producer-arranger-pianist Dick Katz for the Milestone label. The first nine tracks, recorded in June 1965 with Katz, cornetist Thad Jones, bassist Ron Carter and drummers Pete LaRoca and Arnie Wise, were originally released as The Feeling Is Mutual. The other 10 tracks followed three years later, with the ensemble, now featuring Elvin Jones on drums, expanded to include Gary Bartz on alto sax, Hubert Laws on flute and Jim Hall on guitar, and were released as A Shade of Difference.

Both sessions not only capture the spare wistfulness of Merrill’s haunted style at its absolute peak but, courtesy of Katz’s brilliant charts, place her in some of the most startlingly original, offbeat settings of her entire career. Merrill is expectedly dazzling as she plumbs the stark desolation of “Here’s That Rainy Day,” “The Winter of My Discontent” and Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman,” and shapes what is arguably the definitive version of “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most.” But she proves equally sublime showing off a lighter, brighter side with dreamily romantic readings of “My Funny Valentine,” “Lover Come Back to Me” and “Deep in a Dream,” silkily playful sojourns through “Never Will I Marry” and Rodgers and Hart’s too-rarely heard “A Lady Must Live” and a “Baltimore Oriole” that rivals the precocity of Sheila Jordan’s.

The second Mosaic disc, Casa Forte, moves the clock forward to 1980, though Merrill’s voice shows nary a shred of deterioration. Working with her husband-to-be, arranger/pianist Torrie Zito, Merrill fills half of the 10 tracks with familiar selections from the Brazilian songbook, including gems from Jobim (“Wave,” “How Insensitive”), Caymmi (“Like a Lover”), Mendes (“So Many Stars”) and Nascimento (“Vera Cruz”). The balance comprises a mood-shifting pastiche of Michael Franks (“Antonio’s Song”), Johnny Mercer (“Too Marvelous for Words”), Johnny Mandel (“Close Enough for Love”) and Lan O’Kun (the shimmering “Natural Sounds,” which opens the album). Again, top-drawer players, including guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli, drummer Grady Tate, bassist George Mraz and trombonist Urbie Green, surround Merrill. Zito’s arrangements are no match for Katz’s astounding inventiveness, but fully recognize that Merrill is best served on a bed of the finest Jacquard satin as woven by the very best jazz craftsmen.

Now, if only Mosaic would excavate further and unearth Chasin’ the Bird from ’79 with Katz and Pepper Adams, or 1971’s S’posin’ with Gary Peacock, or her ’87 reunion with Gil Evans on Collaboration or Helen Sings, Teddy Swings with Teddy Wilson from 1970, or … well, the list of buried Merrill treasures is almost endless. ---Christopher Loudon, jazztimes.com

download (mp3 @320 kbs):

uploaded yandex 4shared mediafire mega solidfiles zalivalka cloudmailru filecloudio oboom

back

A1 Quiet Nights
A2 Careless Love
A3 Scarlet Ribbons
A4 The House Of The Rising Sun
A5 I Left My Heart Behind
A6 Cannetella
B1 The River
B2 Minha Rocca
B3 Itsi No Komoriuta
B4 Forbidden Games
B5 John Anderson, My Love

Vocals - Helen Merrill
Bass – Keter Betts, Teddy Kotick
Clarinet – Jimmy Giuffre
Drums – Dave Bailey, Osie Johnson
Flute – Hal McKusick
Guitar – Charlie Byrd, Jimmy Raney
Producer – Harry Ringler

This is a rare Helen Merrill folk-oriented album from 1965, with songs from all over the world. Perhaps it was her Croatian upbringing, but very few jazz singers sound as natural singing non-jazz material as Merrill does. She sounds just like herself (which she always does anyway), with no particular adjustment to a straighter idiom, as if she had to shed herself of jazz sophistication in order to become more "innocent." Highlights include the quasi-folk bossa nova "Quiet Nights" and "Itsi No Komoriuta." The great Charlie Byrd is on board, to provide the requisite acoustic accompaniment, as is Jimmy Giuffre on clarinet. --- Richard Mortifoglio, Rovi

download (mp3 @320 kbs):

uploaded yandex 4shared mega mediafire solidfiles zalivalka cloudmailru oboom

back