Thank you for buying this record. What follows is its documentation: the pressing identified, the matrix / runout transcribed by hand from the dead wax, and the condition as assessed before it was listed. It is yours to keep with the record.

— Paul, Vinyl Curator

Helen Merrill

The Nearness Of You

1958 · EmArcy (Mercury) MG-36134 · Mono · US · LP · 33 1/3 RPM

Pressing details

Label	EmArcy (Mercury)
Catalogue number	MG-36134
Year	1958
Mono / Stereo	Mono
Country	US
Format	LP
Speed	33 1/3 RPM
Genre	Jazz - Vocal
Producer	David Carroll (Chicago session supervision), Hal Mooney (New York session supervision)
Musicians	Mike Simpson (flute), Dick Marx (piano), John Frigo (bass), Fred Rundquist (guitar), Jerry Slosberg (drums) - Chicago session; Bobby Jaspar (flute), Bill Evans (piano), Oscar Pettiford (bass), George Russell (guitar), Jo Jones (drums) - New York session

Matrix / Runout

Side A:  MG-36134A-1 M MSI A
Side B:  MG-36134B-1 M MSI B

Condition

Cover: EX/EX LATER ISSUE EMARCY INNER SLEEVE
Vinyl: NM DEEP GROOVE/NM DEEP GROOVE

Variant chronology

1958 - US EmArcy MG-36134, blue label with 'artist drawing circle' logo, deep groove, mono first pressing  <- this copy
1959-1962 - US EmArcy/Mercury blue label reissue, flat edge, no deep groove
1982 - Mercury reissue LP, mono
1991 - Mercury/Verve vinyl reissue
2018 - Japan SHM-CD reissue (not vinyl) - n/a

This Pressing

1958 mono first pressing - EmArcy blue deep-groove label with artist-logo, matrix suffix -1 stamper.

The Album

Recorded in two separate sessions - December 1957 in Chicago with a working local rhythm section, and February 1958 in New York with an all-star sextet including Bill Evans, Bobby Jaspar, Oscar Pettiford and Jo Jones - The Nearness of You was Helen Merrill's fifth studio album and her final release on the EmArcy label before she relocated to Italy and later Japan. Merrill had already established herself with her acclaimed 1954 self-titled album (featuring Clifford Brown) as one of the most distinctive vocal stylists in jazz, prized for her breathy, intimate delivery and unconventional phrasing on standards. This record leans into a warmer, more relaxed mood than her earlier, more dramatic outings, pairing familiar songbook fare - Porter, Gershwin, Arlen, Kern - with a set of top-tier sidemen who give the date real jazz weight, particularly the New York quartet tracks where Evans's harmonic sensibility is already audible just before his rise to fame with Miles Davis. Critics have long treated Merrill as a singer's singer whose readings of standards prioritize mood and space over technical display, and this album is generally viewed as a solid, late-period entry in her formative EmArcy run rather than a landmark on the order of her 1954 debut. It remains valued chiefly for the rare studio pairing of Merrill with Evans and for its place capping her important, if commercially modest, late-1950s American output before her long expatriate period.

Tracklist

Side 1

1. Bye Bye Blackbird (Henderson-Dixon) - 2:54
2. When The Sun Comes Out (Koehler-Arlen) - 4:44
3. I Remember You (Mercer-Schertzinger) - 2:07
4. Softly As In A Morning Sunrise (Romberg-Hammerstein II) - 3:17
5. Dearly Beloved (Kern-Mercer) - 2:03
6. Summertime (Gershwin-Heyward) - 3:25

Side 2

1. All Of You (Cole Porter) - 3:29
2. I See Your Face Before Me (Schwartz-Dietz) - 2:35
3. Let Me Love You (Bart Howard) - 2:45
4. The Nearness Of You (Carmichael-Washington) - 4:02
5. This Time The Dream's On Me (Arlen-Mercer) - 2:17
6. Just Imagine (Henderson-Brown-DeSylva) - 3:21

The Label

This copy carries the blue EmArcy label with the oval 'EmArcy' cursive logo and the silhouetted artist-drawing-a-circle graphic, rim text 'LONG PLAYING HIGH FIDELITY,' and 'MERCURY RECORD CORPORATION MADE IN U.S.A.' at the base - the design EmArcy used on its mono jazz line from its 1954 founding through the early 1960s. The presence of a pronounced deep groove on both sides is a hallmark of the earliest Mercury/EmArcy pressing runs before the label transitioned to flat-edge stampers around 1960. Combined with the '-1' first-stamper suffix in the matrix, this places the disc at or very near the original 1958 pressing rather than a later flat-edge repress, though the plain 'M' mastering mark (rather than an engineer's full name) leaves some ambiguity about which specific mastering pass this is.

Fidelity

This is an original-era EmArcy mono cut, mastered under Mercury's 'Sound Margin Control' custom high-fidelity process referenced on the jacket, with no indication of later remastering. Collectors generally regard early deep-groove EmArcy jazz vocal pressings as offering a warmer, more natural presentation than the label's later flat-edge repress era, though this title has not attracted significant audiophile reissue attention (no known Analogue Productions, Mobile Fidelity, or Classic Records cut exists). Within the album's limited pressing history, this deep-groove first-pressing mono copy sits at or near the top of the fidelity hierarchy, ahead of 1960s flat-edge reissues, 1980s-90s vinyl reissues, and the CD/SHM-CD editions.

Notes

1958 EmArcy MG-36134 mono - consistent with a first or very early pressing. Deep groove on both sides plus the -1 first-stamper matrix suffix support an early pressing window rather than a later flat-edge repress. The blue 'artist drawing a circle' label design was used by EmArcy from its 1954 founding into the early 1960s, so it alone cannot pin the year without the deep-groove and stamper evidence.

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