Dream Of You

Of all the white and female "cool" jazz singers to emerge in the '50s, the moon-voiced Helen Merrill is the probably the least known. She is also the best of a group that includes June Christy and Chris Connor, not to mention a more limited talented like Julie London. Though Merrill's self-titled debut album (with trumpeter Clifford Brown) is a solidly enduring effort, 1956's DREAM OF YOU (arranged by Gil Evans in his first album-length assignment), established the singer as a major jazz artist.
As produced by the always commercially minded Bob Shad of Emarcy Records, the session isn't a particularly forbidding one; it's just arranged, played and sung with the utmost integrity. Helen Merrill has an endearing Marilyn Monroe-like breathy quality to her voice that lends even her most sinewey, technically demanding post-bop lines the repressed yet erotic quality of a true '50s pop singer. No mean dreamer himself, Evans made his floating brass choirs pungent enough to keep Merrill's swoons and flights of pure technique earthbound. These two romantics liked the experience so much that they repeated it 30 years later, note for note, on an album called COLLABORATION. But the first time was youthful artistry personified.|