HELEN MERRILL: Casa Forte

HELEN MERRILL
É mais uma das inúmeras cantoras de jazz que fizeram menos sucesso do que mereciam e permaneceram longe do grande público. Respeitada pelos músicos de jazz, o primeiro álbum de Helen Merrill, ao lado de Clifford Brown é, ainda hoje, uma referência, um álbum sempre incluído em listas dos melhores. Na mesma linha de Anita O´Day, Julie London e Peggy Lee - para citar outras ilustres "sultry singers", Helen Merrill é
minimalista, sem arroubos operísticos ou "scats" gratuitos. "Classy", é um termo que define perfeitamente o estilo de Helen Merrill.
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HELEN MERRILL
Helen Merrill (born Jelena Ana Milcetic on July 21, 1930 in New York City) is an internationally known jazz vocalist whose career has spanned six decades. She began singing in jazz clubs in the Bronx at the age of fourteen and by the time she was sixteen, Merrill had taken up music full time. In 1954, Merrill recorded her
first (and to date most acclaimed) LP, an eponymous record featuring legendary jazz trumpet player Clifford Brown and bassist/cellist Oscar Pettiford, among others. It was to be one of Brown's last recordings, as he was killed in a car accident just two years later. The album was produced and arranged by Quincy Jones, who was then just twenty-one years old. 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, doing live concerts with jazz notables Chet Baker, Romano Mussolini, and Stan Getz. Merrill returned to the U.S. in the 1960s, but moved to Japan in 1967 after touring there. Merrill developed a
following in Japan that remains strong to this day. In addition to recording while in Japan, Merrill became involved in other aspects of the music industry, producing albums and hosting a show on a Tokyo radio station. Helen Merrill has been married three times, first to musician Aaron Sachs, second time to UPI vice president
Donald J Brydon, and third to arranger-conductor Torrie Zito. She has one child, a son, Allan P Sachs, also a singer, who is professionally known as Alan Merrill.
(Source: wikipedia, edited by CB)
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ALBUM REVIEWl
Casa Forte, is a somewhat larger production, recorded over a 3-day period in the spring of 1980. The ample cast—ranging from veterans guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli, bassist George Mraz, drummer Grady Tate, tenor saxophonist Sal Nistico and trombonist Urbie Green to strings, brass and harp—immediately brings to mind a lush, epic-scale backdrop of the sort Gordon Jenkins might supply for Sinatra. But Merrill's vocal timbre and minimalist aesthetic along with the sympathetic arranging of Torrie Zito yield a result intimate and sensitive. With the exception of the Richard Whiting-Johnny Mercer chestnut "Too Marvelous For Words," the emphasis this time out is on more recent additions to the American Songbook, including "contemporary classics" by Antonio Carlos Jobim along with winsome songs by Sergio Mendes, Johnny Mandel, Milton Nascimento, Edu Lobo and Michael Franks. Besides the familiar instrumentation, Zito mixes in the exotic sounds of steel guitar, harp, triangle and bells as a piquant complement to Merrill's dulcet and airy, "dreamy" vocal quality— as unforced and "natural" as gauzy cumulus gathering overhead on a lazy summer afternoon. Yet the arranger recognizes that within the dynamic scale established by a vocalist of such exquisite, poetic sensibilities there are also roots, fiber, soul. No fragile grass hut but a resilient construction, Merrill's "Casa Forte" opens the door to the bracing sounds of trombone, French horn and a rhythm section capable of digging deep, unshakable grooves. All the more reason to applaud Mosaic's decision to release this comparatively neglected Merrill recordings which, like all art worthy of the designation, are incapable of becoming dated. Still, the listener might best be cautioned against playing all of the tracks at once, thus risking their reduction to background ambience- -perhaps all too common an occurrence with music as subtle yet pleasant, concentrated yet unobtrusive as this. Taken as individual performances, each of these interpretations is capable of repaying the listener far in excess of it.
(Source: All about jazz. com)
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MINHA OPINIÃO - nada a acrescentar ao comentário aí de cima, que esgotou o assunto. O álbum é a "rendition" de Helen Merrill à música brasileira, a partir do título da composição de Edu Lobo e da presença dos saudosos DOM UM ROMÃO e RUBENS BASSINI no "timaço" de músicos que acompanham Helen Merrill. Beleza pura!
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HELEN MERRILL: Casa Forte

PERSONNEL:
Bucky Pizzarelli: guitar (1, 3, 5-8)
George Mraz: bass (1-2, 5, 6, 8,10)
Grady Tate: drums (1, 5, 6, 8)
Rubens Bassini: percussion (1, 5, 6, 8)
David Nathieu, Lewis Eley, Barry Finclair, Jerry Tarack, Marvin Morgenstern, Jan Mullen, Charles Libonve, violins (1, 5, 6, 8)
Judy Giest, Lamar Alsop: violas (1, 5, 6, 8)
Charles McCracken: cello (1, 5, 6, 8)
Gloria Agostini: harp (1, 5, 6, 8)
Sal Nistico: tenor saxophone (3, 7-8)
Urbie Green: trombone (3, 7-8)
Jim Buffington, Peter Gordon, John Clark: French horns (3, 7-8)
Torrie Zito: piano (2-4, 7-8, 10)
Francisco Centeno: electric bass (3, 7- 8)
Dom Um Romao: drums and percussion (3, 7-8)
Steve Kroon: percussion (3, 7-8)
Ronnie Zito: drums (2, 10).

ARRANGER: Torrie Zito

TRACKS/FAIXAS:
01. Natural Sounds
02. Antonio's Song
03. Vera Cruz
04. Wave
05. So Many Stars
06. Like A Lover
07. Too Marvelous for Words
08. How Insensitive
09. Casa forte
10. Close Enough for Love