In 1954 Helen Merrill made a now renowned Emarcy album with Clifford Brown, just six months before the 25-year-old trumpeter was tragically killed in a car smash. Forty years later, she has recorded this tribute and, in so doing, produced one of the best albums of this or any other recent year.
The composition of this album is delightfully appropriate, and producers Merrill and Jean-Philippe Allard deserve the highest praise. Indeed, this is a Merrill album more in concept than in performance, since hers is – generously – only one voice among nine, five of the 13 tracks being purely instrumental. Those nine voices are used in varying combinations, and the work of all participants, collectively and individually, is almost beyond reproach.
The core rhythm section of Barron, Reid and Lewis ensures that support from this department is immaculate, as is immediately evident from the opening Your Eyes, shared 50/50 by Merrill’s warm, caressing voice and Harrell’s superb flugelhorn. Daahoud is an instrumental spotlighting the Roney trumpet, but the vocal Born To Be Blue mobilises all four hornmen to play a unison rendering of Clifford Brown’s 1954 solo statement, in a transcription by pianist-arranger Torrie Zito.
I Remember Clifford, with the talented young Roy Hargrove taking the trumpet honours and Helen Merrill producing some magnificent singing, brings confirmation that this is an album set to maintain its breathtakingly high standard throughout. The joy continues with Tom Harrell’s beautiful a cappella rendering of Joy Spring, while I’ll Remember April, with Harrell now fronting the quartet, inspires a marvellous contribution from pianist Barron. The intense, impassioned Don’t Explain has Lew Soloff at his mightiest, although duetting with himself seems a bit of a pity with three other trumpeters on hand. The up-tempo instrumental Brownie, an excellent Zito original, draws top-class work from the horns of Soloff, Hargrove and Harrell; as too, plus Roney, does the vocal You’d Be So Nice, which again uses the trumpet ensemble to play Brownie’s 1954 solo.
I’ll Be Seeing You is a spine-tingler, surely the performance of a lifetime from a deeply moving Helen Merrill, sensitively backed by just the Harrell flugelhorn and the Zito keyboards. The three of them here turn in what must be one of the great jazz recordings. Memories Of You is a truly memorable piano solo by Barron, while Gone With The Wind is all Helen, only Zito in tasteful support. Some may be surprised by the closing Largo (from Dvorak’s New World symphony), but – rendered anthem-like by Soloff, Hargrove, Harrell and Barron – this short, beautiful piece touchingly sums up what is essentially a wonderful tribute to Brownie.
It’s been many a year since I’ve heard a new recording as good as this one, and you certainly won’t hear many sets as musical – and enjoyable – as this. A quite magnificent album. Please get it and share the pleasure it has given me.
Discography
Your Eyes; Daahoud; Born To Be Blue; I Remember Clifford; Joy Spring; I’ll Remember April; Don’t Explain; Brownie; You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To; I’ll Be Seeing You; Memories Of You; Gone With The Wind; Largo (62.58)
Collective personnel: Helen Merrill (v); Lew Soloff, Wallace Roney (t); Tom Harrell, Roy Hargrove (t, flh); Kenny Barron (p); Rufus Reid (b); Victor Lewis (d); Torrie Zito (dir, kyb, arr). New York City, January 21-23, 1994.
(Verve 522 363-2)
