Written by American vocalist Helen Merrill, is sadly often left out of the conversation when exploring legendary jazz vocalists. She performed and recorded with legends throughout her career including Charlie Parker, Earl Hines, Bud Powell, Ron Carter, Gil Evans, Quincy Jones and Clifford Brown, and released over 30 albums as leader or co-leader. Alma Micic’s latest album Lilac Wine is dedicated to Helen Merrill & Clifford Brown, and gifts us with a well overdue reminder not only of Helen’s work, but beautifully showcases Alma’s work as vocalist.
Born and raised in Belgrade, Serbia, Alma Micic moved to the United States to study at Berklee, and since making the US her home has released five critically acclaimed albums. Lilac Wine Alma’s recent and sixth album, features Eric Alexander and was recorded at the legendary Van Gelder Studio.
With so many wonderful legendary vocalists in the jazz scene, Helen Merrill is not a singer that is often spoken about. What was it about her work that drew you to her and to create this album?
I knew her work before, but I had the pleasure of meeting her and doing an event with her some years ago, here in the Bronx where I live with my husband and kids. This wonderful organisation that is run by Elena Martinez and the famous percussionist Bobby Sanabria, invited me to participate in a series called Women in Jazz. It was a series that featured artists from the Bronx or that live in the Bronx and Helen was born and raised in the Bronx. She was also a child of Croatian immigrants, which is the part of the world that I’m from, so we hit it off right away. I met her granddaughter, who’s a very talented photographer, Laura Merrill, and we all just hung out for the whole day. There was a concert, and Helen spoke about her achievements and the event was really about honouring her. Some years passed and I started getting more into her discography and I discovered some really mind-blowing records that she did, because she was recording so actively over a very long period of time.
I really got into some of her arrangements and the song Lilac Wine featured on two different albums, one she recorded back in the 1950s and then she re-recorded it in the 2000s. (Lilac Wine, 2002 and Helen Merrill with Strings, 1955) The sensibility is the same, but two vastly different versions of the same song. I was just very inspired by them and I had this idea that I brought to my producer Tetsuo Hara and asked him what he thought about doing a tribute album. He’s a huge fan of Helen’s and has a lot of knowledge, so together we selected the songs. It was sort of a conceptual album for me to sort of explore her body of work, and she also has that legendary recording with Clifford Brown ( Helen Merrill with Clifford Brown arr. by Quincy Jones, 1955). Tetsuo Hara suggested because I was working with Eric Alexander at the time that we do a sort of an homage and have Eric equally featured in the record as a way to honour that legendary record.
Helen Merrill by Van Walker
Why do you think that she is not as well-known as some of the other legendary vocalists?
I think maybe because she spent a large portion of her career in Japan and that’s why she wasn’t as present here in the American scene. But she is hugely respected and admired throughout the world. Sometimes, things are different in the home country, compared to the rest of the world, but I think people know who she is. Maybe it was never like that level of stardom that was achieved like with of course Ella, Billie and Sarah, but you know, there are many other singers that people don’t know enough about. It’s just a matter of doing your due diligence and checking out all the singers if you love vocal jazz.
It’s a really beautiful tribute to her and reminds people of her work. But also for you, I imagine, as a vocalist, quite a daunting task, to create a tribute album to such an amazing vocalist. How did you approach that?
I was very excited about it honestly, because I felt confident that I could do the project justice and I could honour her. The band is incredible, top musicians from the East Coast and on the world jazz scene. I find we have similarity in the sentiment and the emotion, maybe because we’re from the same part of the world. Sometimes people have a similar timbre or similar features that come with a certain part of geographical belonging. But I just could feel connected to her emotion and the way she expresses herself when she sings. I found something that I could really relate to and that I could maybe emulate in some way, in my own artistic expression.
Photo by Jose Gonzalez
I was really excited to explore the repertoire and to choose the songs and it was a close collaboration with my producer Tetsuo Hara. We went back and forth with suggestions because he has such a vast knowledge of her discography. He already knew everything. I went with songs that I have known for a long time in my own repertoire that I’ve always liked, but never recorded. So, for example, You’d Be So Nice To Come Home Too, which is a song I’ve performed, with my husband, on so many different occasions – concerts, events – it’s a sort of an opener for me and one of those songs that is usually the first of three songs that I start with. Helen has a gorgeous version of that standard as well. Then I went to some that I have never performed anywhere, not even in my house until I decided to do this project. And one of them was Lilac Wine, which was the song that inspired the whole record really. I think it was when I heard that song and I heard her version of it that I wanted to do a whole album of Helen songs. That song touched me very deeply. I know there’s many versions of that song – Nina Simone has a wonderful, moving version and also Jeff Buckley, who is not a jazz artist, had a beautiful version. So, it’s a well-known song, but it’s also not so well known! Also Wild is the Wind that everybody knows, she recorded on her record that’s called Lilac Wine with beautiful, lush strings, just an inspiring version and because of that I decided to also interpret the song. And that song, I think is maybe even one of the best tracks of the album in my opinion and I’ve heard from people that they love it. So, the album went between songs that I knew very well to songs that I didn’t know at all – a wide variety.
With the songs you already had in your repertoire, as a vocalist, how did you work on creating a sound that was respecting Helen but keeping your own uniqueness?
I don’t think I did it differently than what I did before, to be honest with you. I really have been singing these songs for a very long time. When I heard Helen’s versions, there was a lot of similarity to what I was already doing but also those ‘aha’ moments. There’s a common sensitivity that I could relate to. So, what I’ve been doing this whole time is exactly how I would like to honour her, you know? So, whether it was conscious or subconscious it didn’t really wander too far from how I would have already interpreted it. I had the songs as my own because I performed them for so many years as part of my repertoire.
I don’t know what it is, but there is something that attracts me to her sound. It’s almost like when she sings it makes you a little bit nervous sometimes. There’s this cliffhanger quality in her singing, but there’s also warmth and there’s romance, but also at the same time, a lot of heartbreak. In our culture, I feel like every single song we sing in the folklore tradition has all those things – the cliffhangers, the warmth, the broken heart and the hopefulness as well. So, I felt like I could really draw on that as an inspiration.
Behind the Scenes at Van Gelder Studio. Photo courtesy of Alma Micic
You recorded the album at the legendary Van Gelder Studio. That must have been amazing!
I’ll tell you, it’s quite a story. So, the first time ever I was at Rudy Van Gelders’ studio was when Eric Alexander invited me to be a featured vocalist on his Timing Is Everything album, which came out in 2023-2024. It was sort of a last-minute thing, and he says ‘I want you to sing Evergreen, the famous Barbra Streisand song, here’s the arrangement. Can you do it? It is going to be one take.’ So we went to the studio and I remember it was Easter morning and we went to the studio for the first time and, you know, I’m going around, taking the photos and meeting the wonderful people who run the studio, Maureen and Don Sickler, who are just angels and masters of their art and we kind of hit it off. And so, after I recorded that one take, I said, I would really love to record my next record here and they said, just let us know when you’re ready. So, I did ‘You’re My Thrill’, which was my first record for Venus in 2024. I recorded there and now this is my second album at the studio and there’s no place like it. It’s truly special in every single way.
I felt like, you know, Johnny Hartman’s ghost was there because that’s my favourite record of all time, the Johnny Hartman and John Coltrane record, that record has kind of changed my life. It’s one of those records that puts things in perspective and shows you the way. Sometimes music can do that for people and that was my record. It was something I listened to basically in a time of my life when I was transitioning from Boston, from finishing my studies at Berkeley, to NYC. I remember packing up and listening to this record and so that record just stayed with me and I always listen to it. So when I was at Van Gelder’s, I could literally feel like the moment, feel like I travelled in time. I was there in the presence of these people who are extraordinary. It’s kind of like the jazz church.
Lilac Wine is a beautiful album and is out now!
This article was first published in the March 2026 Women in Jazz Media magazine
Last modified: May 19, 2026
