Helen Merrill With: "Stan Getz - Just Friends" & "Gil Evans Collaboration"2 CD's

Description: Helen Merrill: Helen Merrill (born Jelena Ana Milcetic; July 21, 1929) is an American jazz vocalist. Her first album, the eponymous 1954 recording Helen Merrill (with Clifford Brown on EmArcy), was an immediate success and associated her with the first generation of bebop jazz musicians. After an active 1950s and 1960s, Merrill spent time recording and touring in Europe and Japan, falling into obscurity in the United States. In the 1980s and 1990s, she was recorded by EmArcy, JVC and Verve, and her performances in America revived her profile. Known for her emotional, sensual vocal performances, she continues to perform today, her career now in its sixth decade of concerts and recordings. Jelena Ana Milcetic was born in New York to Croatian immigrant parents. She began singing in jazz clubs in the Bronx in 1944 when she was fourteen. She had three sisters and a brother who died before she was born. 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 Earl Hines; 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. Merrill was signed by Mercury Records to their EmArcy label. In 1954, Merrill recorded an eponymous LP, which featured trumpeter Clifford Brown and bassist Oscar Pettiford. The album was produced and arranged by Quincy Jones, who was twenty-one years old. The success of Helen Merrill prompted Mercury to sign her to an additional four-album contract. Merrill's follow-up was the 1956 LP Dream of You, which was arranged and conducted by Gil Evans. His arrangements for Merrill laid the foundation for his work with Miles Davis. Merrill returned to the U.S. in 1972. She recorded a bossa nova album, a Christmas album, and a Rodgers and Hammerstein album. In 1987, she and Gil Evans recorded fresh arrangements of Dream of You, which they released under the title Collaboration. It was the best received of Merrill's 1980s albums. In 1987, she co-produced Billy Eckstine Sings with Benny Carter. In 1995, she recorded Brownie: Homage to Clifford Brown. In 2000, she released Jelena Ana Milcetic a.k.a. Helen Merrill, which drew on her Croatian heritage as well as her American upbringing. The album combines jazz, pop, and blues songs with traditional Croatian songs sung in Croatian. She released the album Lilac Wine in 2003. In his Biographical Guide to the Great Jazz and Pop Singers, jazz critic Will Friedwald writes that Merrill "improved with age," and that her "albums of the nineties and aughts represent a dramatic improvement over her vintage work." Gil Evans: Born: May 13, 1912, Toronto, Canada.Died: March 20, 1988, Cuernavaca, Mexico. Grammy Award winning Canadian jazz pianist, arranger, composer and bandleader. He is widely recognized as one of the greatest orchestrators in jazz, playing an important role in the development of cool jazz, modal jazz, free jazz, and jazz fusion. He is best known for his acclaimed collaborations with Miles Davis. Clifford Brown: American jazz trumpet player. Born October 30, 1930, Wilmington, Delaware, USA; died June 26, 1956, Bedford, Pennsylvania, USA, in a car crash. He was encouraged by both Dizzy Gillespie and Fats Navarro, that latter of which was Brown's main influence. He performed with R&B bandleader Chris Powell , Tadd Dameron, Lionel Hampton, and Art Blakey before forming his own group with Max Roach, the Clifford Brown and Max Roach Quintet. In June 1956, Brown and Richie Powell were being driven from Philadelphia to Chicago by Powell's wife Nancy for the band's next appearance. While driving on a rainy night on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, west of Bedford, she lost control of the car and it went off the road. All three were killed in the resulting crash. Brown is buried in Mt. Zion Cemetery, in Wilmington, Delaware. He won the Down Beat critics' poll for the ‘New Star of the Year’ in 1954; he was inducted into the Down Beat ‘Jazz Hall of Fame’ in 1972 in the critics' poll. Helen Merrill Featuring Stan Getz – Just Friends Genre:JazzStyle:Contemporary Jazz, Cool JazzYear:1989Track list:Cavatina5:47It Never Entered My Mind6:12Just Friends4:38It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)6:01Baby Ain't I Good To You2:50It's Not Easy Being Green2:54If You Go Away4:02Yesterdays6:43Music Maker Helen Merrill - Gil Evans – CollaborationGenre:JazzStyle:Big Band, Contemporary Jazz, VocalYear:1988Track list:Summertime4:27Where Flamingo's Fly3:07Dream Of You2:51I'm A Fool To Want You4:30Troubled Waters5:26I'm Just A Lucky So And So3:09People Will Say We're In Love2:49By Myself3:38Anyplace I Hang My Hat Is Home4:35I've Never Seen4:19He Was Too Good To Me3:15A New Town Is A Blue Town3:35 5:17

Price: 18 USD

Location: Simi Valley, California

End Time: 2025-01-09T17:55:43.000Z

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