1956 - MONO - HELEN MERRILL / MILES DAVIS "DREAM OF YOU" JAZZ

$

99

                          TOP COPY ~~ 64 years ago FIRST PRINT
Miles Davis

• ORIGINAL 1956 =MONO=FIRST PRESS ..|/\|...............................................|/\|..
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• Helen Merrill
  Miles Davis
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• "Dream Of You"
  
  
• ..|/\|...............................................|/\|..
• USA -EmArcy Records - MG 36078 - MONO
  

1. Original, VERY CLEAN, 1956 MONO first printing  ... One of the finest jazz vocal albums of the 1950s is Helen Merrill's "Dream of You." 
   
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3. featuring the legendary, very young MILES DAVIS
   
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5. Recorded over the course of three days in July 1956 for EmArcy, the session paired Helen with arranger Gil Evans nearly a year before his first majestic session with trumpeter Miles Davis. Helen's Dream of You isn't a typical jazz-vocal recording of the period, where a singer belts out a set of American Songbook tunes backed by a bouncy band. Instead, what you have here is a true artistic duet—with Helen delivering deeply passionate readings of offbeat songs as Evans' jagged orchestrations lap at the lyrics and at times wash right over them.
   
   What is to love most about this recording is Helen's phrasing. Helen sounds as though she's singing while lying in a grassy field, pulling out blades aimlessly as she tries to make sense of her life and feelings.
   
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7. In many cases in the '50s, big bands functioned as male counterparts to female vocals. But here, Evans' approach is decidedly feminine in its sophistication and sensitivity. His charts play the role of best friend, empathizing with Helen's wonderment, adding a flute affirmation here and violin shoulder to cry on there.
   
   Evans truly is at the top of his arranging game here before he was brought to Columbia by producer George Avakian. Combined, Helen and Evans make you think and feel, and they don't take no for an answer. Dig Andy Razaf and Eubie Blake's You're Lucky to Me. Helen is at first girlishly shy before letting loose with adulation over her good fortune in love. Or the exotic quality of Elthea Peale, Harold Courlander and John Benson Brooks' Where Flamingos Fly. Or Duke Ellington and Mack David's haughty I'm Just a Lucky So and So.
   
   What's special about this album are its impositions. This isn't pop material. Each song is an artistic commitment, and both Helen and Evans work hard to engage you with every note and lyric line. As with Billie Holiday, Helen's voice is an instrument offering a hidden message—where the breaths are taken and how forceful or tender the expression.
   
   The more you listen to Dream of You, the more you marvel at the way Helen holds back, opens up and interacts with Evans' clouds-across-the-moon orchestrations. There's a lot of emotion here and you can't help but be sympathetic and swayed.

1. A
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3.  People Will Say We're in Love 2:28
   
    By Myself 3:20
   
   Any Place I Hang My Hat Is Home 4:00
   
   I've Never Seen 3:34
   
   He Was Too Good to Me 2:58
   
   A New Town Is a Blue Town 3:08
   
   B
4.  You're Lucky to Me 3:25
   
   Where Flamingos Fly 2:45
   
   Dream of You
   
   I'm a Fool to Want You 4:04
   
   Just a Lucky So and So 3:09
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   CONDITION:
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8. The cover: rated: near "EX" (excellent) and better, laminated front cover and minty clean white back cover. THICK cardboard cover construction in the way they don't make any longer. There are no delete marks, no split seams, no bends, and no writing  ...

1. The vinyl: Rated: M- TOP COPY, thick platter, so clean, plays amazing with terrific bold force of melodies permeating the MONO format mixes. Both EmArcy labels are clean