Helen Merrill
| Helen Merrill | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Jelena Ana Milcetic |
| Born |
July 21, 1930 New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Genres | Jazz |
| Occupation(s) | Vocalist |
| Years active | 1944–present |
| Labels | Emarcy, Verve |
| Associated acts | Clifford Brown, Gil Evans, Oscar Pettiford |
| Website | www |
Helen Merrill (born Jelena Ana Milcetic, July 21, 1930) is an American jazz vocalist. Merrill's recording career has spanned six decades. She has recorded and performed with notable jazz musicians.
Jelena Ana Milcetic was born in New York City in 1930 to Croatian immigrant parents. She began singing in jazz clubs in the Bronx in 1944, aged fourteen. By the time she was sixteen, Merrill had taken up music full-time. In 1952, Merrill made her recording debut when she was asked to sing "A Cigarette For Company" with the Earl Hines Band; the song was released on the D'Oro label, created specifically to record Hines' band with Merrill. Etta Jones was in Hines' band at the time and she too sang on this session, which was reissued on the Xanadu label in 1985. At this time she was married to musician Aaron Sachs. They divorced in 1956.
Merrill was signed by Mercury Records for their new Emarcy label. In 1954, Merrill recorded her first LP, an eponymous record featuring trumpeter Clifford Brown and bassist/cellist Oscar Pettiford, among others. The album was produced and arranged by Quincy Jones, who was then twenty-one years old. The success of Helen Merrill prompted Mercury to sign her for an additional four-album contract.
Merrill's follow-up to Helen Merrill was the 1956 LP, Dream of You, which was produced and arranged by bebop arranger and pianist Gil Evans. Evans' work on Dream of You was his first in many years. His arrangements on Merrill's laid the musical foundations for his work in following years with Miles Davis.
After recording sporadically through the late 1950s and 1960s, Merrill spent much of her time touring Europe, where she enjoyed more commercial success than she had in the United States. She settled for a time in Italy, recording an album there and doing concerts with jazz musicians Piero Umiliani, Chet Baker, Romano Mussolini, and Stan Getz. In 1960 arranger composer Ennio Morricone worked with Helen Merrill on an EP "Helen Merrill sings Italian Songs"on the RCA Italiana label.
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