Helen Merrill
"Jelena Ana Milcetic, a.k.a. Helen Merrill"
Over the years, vocalist Helen Merrill has never been shy about taking risks and challenging herself. But with Jelena Ana Milcetic, a.k.a. Helen Merrill (Verve), the veteran jazz singer has delivered a CD that is ambitious even by her high standards. Those who are used to hearing Merrill sing straight-ahead jazz exclusively are in for a surprise; drawing on jazz, pop, and folk as well as traditional Croatian music, Jelena Ana Milcetic, a.k.a. Helen Merrill is an unpredictable effort that she describes as a "mini-autobiography." It is a CD that reflects her American upbringing as well as her affection for the culture that her immigrant parents brought with them from Eastern Europe.
To fully appreciate just how personal an album Jelena Ana Milcetic, a.k.a. Helen Merrill is, one should know some things about the singer's history. Since the 1950s, the jazz world has known her as Helen Merrill-an Americanized version of Jelena Ana Milcetic, the name that her Croatian parents gave her when she was born. While Merrill was born and raised in New York, her parents Antoinette and Frank Milcetic were immigrants from the island of Krk in the Adriatic Sea. Merrill grew up appreciating the jazz, standards, and pre-rock pop that she heard on the radio in the 1930s and 1940s, and also developed an appreciation of traditional Croatian music.
"My mother loved Croatian music, but she also loved Cole Porter," recalls Merrill, who now resides in New York City. "So I was brought up on Croatian songs as well as American songs, and this album reflects that."
When Merrill was recording and co-producing Jelena Ana Milcetic, a.k.a. Helen Merrill over a five-month period in 1999, she enjoyed a great deal of encouragement from the French jazz expert Jean-Philippe Allard (who along with Daniel Richard is among the album's executive producers). From the beginning, Allard was enthusiastic about this project-so enthusiastic that he encouraged her to visit the island of Krk and absorb as much Croatian music as she could. One of the traditional Croatian outfits she heard was the Lado Folk Dance & Music Ensemble of Croatia, which can be heard on the album's opener "Kirje."
"When I visited Krk, I realized that I wouldn't do an album of just Croatian folk," Merrill asserts. "But I wanted to acknowledge that part of my heritage as well as my jazz background, and when I got into recording the album, it became sort of a mini-autobiography. I wanted to include some songs that I learned from my parents as a child as well as songs that I have learned throughout my career." Merrill's musical influences include Johnny Hodges, Lester Young, Sarah Vaughan, Jo Stafford, Miles Davis, and her mother, whose favorite pop songs were written mostly by Jerome Kern.
After getting off to a very Croatian start with "Kirje"-which unites the Lado Ensemble with Canadian jazz drummer Terry Clarke-Jelena Ana Milcetic, a.k.a. Helen Merrill turns its attention to a variety of jazz, pop, folk and Croatian songs that have touched Merrill over the years. During the course of this CD, Merrill interprets everything from Judy Collins' "My Father" and the standard "Lost in the Stars" to the African-American spiritual "Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child," the traditional Croatian song "Ti Si Rajski Cvijet" ("You Are A Flower from Paradise" in English), and the 19th Century folk classic "I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen."
But as eclectic and unpredictable as Jelena Ana Milcetic, a.k.a. Helen Merrill is, the album never comes across as erratic, confused, or unfocused. Everything fits together, and the CD ends up making a cohesive musical statement.
"A good song can take on a very universal meaning," Merrill explains. "'Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child' is a Negro spiritual, but it has a message that people all over the world relate to. And 'I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen' is a song that my mother really identified with. When I was a child and I heard my mother singing the lyrics 'I will take you back, Kathleen, to where your heart can feel no pain,' I knew that she was thinking about herself. I knew that she really missed her homeland."
Equally compelling is Merrill's interpretation of "My Father," a ballad that folk-pop singer Judy Collins made famous in the late 1960s. Though not all of the song's lyrics are consistent with events in the lives of Merrill or her parents, her interpretation is so personal that Collins' lyrics end up sounding like an ode to Merrill's late father Frank.
"When Judy Collins wrote 'My Father,' she was reflecting on her own experiences," Merrill notes. "But when I sang it, I was thinking about my own father. Unlike the father that she wrote about, my father never lived in Ohio and never was a coal miner. In the 1960s, it was very fashionable for folk singers to write about people working in the mines-it became a metaphor for dues-paying, which is how I interpreted those lyrics. When my parents came to the United States to better their lives, they gave up a lot. And that was true of most immigrants, no matter where they came from. They knew what it meant to sacrifice."
Merrill herself was no stranger to paying dues along the way. But she also had a lot of encouragement-not only from her parents, but also from major jazz legends like Bud Powell and Al Haig. Thankfully, her talent didn't go unrecognized.
She was only in her teens when she started singing jazz professionally in the 1950s. Merrill was hired as a featured vocalist for Reggie Childs' big band in 1946 (she was 16), and the rest of the decade found her sitting in with bebop heavyweights like Charlie Parker, Powell, and Davis.
"When I started singing in New York, many of the great jazz musicians were living there," Merrill recalls. "I was drawn to jazz because I felt the warmth, honesty of expression, and, above all, the spontaneity of the music."
In 1952, Merrill spent three months as a featured vocalist for pianist Earl "Fatha" Hines, and by 1954, she was signed to EmArcy/Mercury Records as a solo artist. Arranged by Quincy Jones, her self-titled debut album of 1954 prominently featured the influential trumpeter Clifford Brown.
Because of the subtlety of her singing, Merrill was often described as a member of jazz's Cool School-like June Christy, Julie London, and Chris Connor, Merrill was among the vocalists who defined cool jazz in the 1950s. Cool jazz was essentially bebop, but bebop played with subtlety and restraint rather than aggression. Merrill, of course, didn't limit herself to any one style of jazz-whether she was embracing cool jazz, bop, swing, or post-bop, the vocalist insisted on keeping an open mind.
Merrill went on to build a huge catalogue, recording more than 50 albums over the years and recording for labels that ranged from Milestone to Storyville to Antilles. The list of jazz greats who Merrill has worked with is a l
Over the years, vocalist Helen Merrill has never been shy about taking risks and challenging herself. But with Jelena Ana Milcetic, a.k.a. Helen Merrill (Verve), the veteran jazz singer has delivered a CD that is ambitious even by her high standards. Those who are used to hearing Merrill sing straight-ahead jazz exclusively are in for a surprise; drawing on jazz, pop, and folk as well as traditional Croatian music, Jelena Ana Milcetic, a.k.a. Helen Merrill is an unpredictable effort that she describes as a "mini-autobiography." It is a CD that reflects her American upbringing as well as her affection for the culture that her immigrant parents brought with them from Eastern Europe.
To fully appreciate just how personal an album Jelena Ana Milcetic, a.k.a. Helen Merrill is, one should know some things about the singer's history. Since the 1950s, the jazz world has known her as Helen Merrill-an Americanized version of Jelena Ana Milcetic, the name that her Croatian parents gave her when she was born. While Merrill was born and raised in New York, her parents Antoinette and Frank Milcetic were immigrants from the island of Krk in the Adriatic Sea. Merrill grew up appreciating the jazz, standards, and pre-rock pop that she heard on the radio in the 1930s and 1940s, and also developed an appreciation of traditional Croatian music.
"My mother loved Croatian music, but she also loved Cole Porter," recalls Merrill, who now resides in New York City. "So I was brought up on Croatian songs as well as American songs, and this album reflects that."
When Merrill was recording and co-producing Jelena Ana Milcetic, a.k.a. Helen Merrill over a five-month period in 1999, she enjoyed a great deal of encouragement from the French jazz expert Jean-Philippe Allard (who along with Daniel Richard is among the album's executive producers). From the beginning, Allard was enthusiastic about this project-so enthusiastic that he encouraged her to visit the island of Krk and absorb as much Croatian music as she could. One of the traditional Croatian outfits she heard was the Lado Folk Dance & Music Ensemble of Croatia, which can be heard on the album's opener "Kirje."
"When I visited Krk, I realized that I wouldn't do an album of just Croatian folk," Merrill asserts. "But I wanted to acknowledge that part of my heritage as well as my jazz background, and when I got into recording the album, it became sort of a mini-autobiography. I wanted to include some songs that I learned from my parents as a child as well as songs that I have learned throughout my career." Merrill's musical influences include Johnny Hodges, Lester Young, Sarah Vaughan, Jo Stafford, Miles Davis, and her mother, whose favorite pop songs were written mostly by Jerome Kern.
After getting off to a very Croatian start with "Kirje"-which unites the Lado Ensemble with Canadian jazz drummer Terry Clarke-Jelena Ana Milcetic, a.k.a. Helen Merrill turns its attention to a variety of jazz, pop, folk and Croatian songs that have touched Merrill over the years. During the course of this CD, Merrill interprets everything from Judy Collins' "My Father" and the standard "Lost in the Stars" to the African-American spiritual "Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child," the traditional Croatian song "Ti Si Rajski Cvijet" ("You Are A Flower from Paradise" in English), and the 19th Century folk classic "I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen."
But as eclectic and unpredictable as Jelena Ana Milcetic, a.k.a. Helen Merrill is, the album never comes across as erratic, confused, or unfocused. Everything fits together, and the CD ends up making a cohesive musical statement.
"A good song can take on a very universal meaning," Merrill explains. "'Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child' is a Negro spiritual, but it has a message that people all over the world relate to. And 'I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen' is a song that my mother really identified with. When I was a child and I heard my mother singing the lyrics 'I will take you back, Kathleen, to where your heart can feel no pain,' I knew that she was thinking about herself. I knew that she really missed her homeland."
Equally compelling is Merrill's interpretation of "My Father," a ballad that folk-pop singer Judy Collins made famous in the late 1960s. Though not all of the song's lyrics are consistent with events in the lives of Merrill or her parents, her interpretation is so personal that Collins' lyrics end up sounding like an ode to Merrill's late father Frank.
"When Judy Collins wrote 'My Father,' she was reflecting on her own experiences," Merrill notes. "But when I sang it, I was thinking about my own father. Unlike the father that she wrote about, my father never lived in Ohio and never was a coal miner. In the 1960s, it was very fashionable for folk singers to write about people working in the mines-it became a metaphor for dues-paying, which is how I interpreted those lyrics. When my parents came to the United States to better their lives, they gave up a lot. And that was true of most immigrants, no matter where they came from. They knew what it meant to sacrifice."
Merrill herself was no stranger to paying dues along the way. But she also had a lot of encouragement-not only from her parents, but also from major jazz legends like Bud Powell and Al Haig. Thankfully, her talent didn't go unrecognized.
She was only in her teens when she started singing jazz professionally in the 1950s. Merrill was hired as a featured vocalist for Reggie Childs' big band in 1946 (she was 16), and the rest of the decade found her sitting in with bebop heavyweights like Charlie Parker, Powell, and Davis.
"When I started singing in New York, many of the great jazz musicians were living there," Merrill recalls. "I was drawn to jazz because I felt the warmth, honesty of expression, and, above all, the spontaneity of the music."
In 1952, Merrill spent three months as a featured vocalist for pianist Earl "Fatha" Hines, and by 1954, she was signed to EmArcy/Mercury Records as a solo artist. Arranged by Quincy Jones, her self-titled debut album of 1954 prominently featured the influential trumpeter Clifford Brown.
Because of the subtlety of her singing, Merrill was often described as a member of jazz's Cool School-like June Christy, Julie London, and Chris Connor, Merrill was among the vocalists who defined cool jazz in the 1950s. Cool jazz was essentially bebop, but bebop played with subtlety and restraint rather than aggression. Merrill, of course, didn't limit herself to any one style of jazz-whether she was embracing cool jazz, bop, swing, or post-bop, the vocalist insisted on keeping an open mind.
Merrill went on to build a huge catalogue, recording more than 50 albums over the years and recording for labels that ranged from Milestone to Storyville to Antilles. The list of jazz greats who Merrill has worked with is a l