Helen Merrill (album)


Helen Merrill is the debut studio album by vocalist Helen Merrill, on which she's accompanied by trumpeter Clifford Brown in arrangements by the young Quincy Jones. Brown had recorded a somewhat similar album with Sarah Vaughan only a few days previously, on December 16 and 18, 1954.
In 1995, on the fortieth anniversary of this debut album, Merrill recorded a, who had been killed in a car crash in 1956, the year after their collaborative album was released.

Reception

The AllMusic review by Scott Yanow awarded the album four and a half stars and said that "The music is essentially straight-ahead bop, yet the seven standards... are uplifted by the presence of Merrill and Brown." In a review of a 2007 reissue of Merrill's first two albums by Lone Hill Jazz, David Rickert singled out the performance of "'S Wonderful" as "one of the best versions of the Gershwin tune I've heard in years" and called the two sessions "a vocal jazz feast well worth deserving of more renown."

Track listing

  1. "Don't Explain" - 5:08
  2. "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To" - 4:17
  3. "What's New?" - 4:56
  4. "Falling in Love with Love" - 3:52
  5. "Yesterdays" - 5:56
  6. " Born to Be Blue" - 5:12
  7. "'S Wonderful" - 3:12

    Personnel