Helen Carr was born in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1922. She started singing as a child, and realized there was money in singing for an audience at a very young age. So, even though her first job in high school was as an usherette in a theatre, her dream was always to become a singer. Her family later moved to Illinois, and in 1936, after her father’s death, Helen and her mother started traveling around the country to finally settle in Oakland, California.

There is much speculation about her artistic beginnings, as there was another vocalist named Helen Carr on the west coast, presumably older, who performed in an amateur vocal contest at the Gateway Theater in Oakland in 1936, as published by the Oakland Tribune on July 28th of that year. It was not the same Helen though, because our singer took her last name Carr only after marrying Walter Carr in June 1941. A third singer with same name was working in the Pennsylvania area at the time. And in December 1947, possibly a fourth Helen Carr, or maybe one of the Helen’s we have already mentioned, appeared in a Broadway production of “Caribbean Carnival” and later in 1956 at the Copacabana in the revue “Spring Will be a Little Great this Year.” All in all, a real source of confusion for music historians.

There is no available information about what Helen Carr did during the first three years of her failed marriage, but it is certain that her life took a turn when she met Donn Trenner in San Francisco, in March 1945, a boy five years younger than her. By then, Helen was 23 years old, already separated, but not yet divorced from her husband, and had a four-year-old son, Gordon Carr, who lived with his father’s sister.

Donn Trenner was the pianist for the popular Ted Fio Rito Orchestra, engaged at the Golden Gate Theater in San Francisco from March 7-20. In his biography, Leave It to Me… My Life in Music, Donn explains: “I hooked up with her and we started to date. I didn’t know she sang until after we started going out.” Shortly after finishing Fio Rito’s stint at the Golden Gate Theater, Donn enlisted in the military.

Meanwhile, Helen continued to develop her singing career as a nightclub vocalist, as can be seen in an ad published on the San Luis Obispo Telegram of November 20, 1945, in which Helen is the headliner at Nina’s Shell Beach Cocktails. “Every night starting Monday— Helen Carr Vocalist. A cute little blonde singer who has been with big name bands in Seattle and the best places in San Francisco. You will really enjoy her.” If we take this advertisement at face value, we can surmise that Helen had already been singing professionally for a few years.

In the meanwhile, Donn was stationed at Sheppard Field, Texas, serving as a band musician. Before long, he was assigned to Special Services, where he wrote for the libraries of three different bands, and produced a weekly show called Shep Parade. “We put the show together and did it on Monday and Tuesday nights at the theater on the post. I invited Helen Carr to come down and sing in the show.” After eleven months, he was transferred to Scott Field, in Bellville, Illinois, about 25 miles east of downtown St. Louis.

“Helen and I were going together by now and she moved to be near me. We got a little place by the famous Chase Hotel in St. Louis. They had a venue called the Steeplechase Room with a trio led by a great guitarist, Joe Schirmer. That’s where Helen learned one of Cole Porter’s lesser-known songs, “Down in the Depths (On the 90th Floor).” The song has three different segments; it’s not written as a standard thirty-two bar song form. It tells a story, which requires a distribution of different emotions within the lyric content. There’s a line I often think of because of the way she sang it, “With a million neon rainbows, burning below me.”

It takes a certain kind of vocalist to pull it off. Helen Carr was that kind of vocalist. “With that sultry quality in Helen’s voice, you could hear Billie Holiday’s influence. Helen was more of a soprano, but not a high-pitched soprano. She didn’t have an enormous range, but she maximized her talents in the way she approached a song. Helen could interpret music with great feeling. She had wonderful rhythmic timing and excellent pitch. Helen taught me a lot of songs.

“I went into town to be with her as often as I could and would catch a bus back to the post when I needed to. It was pouring rain one morning while I was waiting at the bus stop, and I wrote a song called, “Memory of the Rain.” Helen and I would record that song. We continued to date, and after I got out of the service I brought her to New York.”

Once there, in the fall of 1946, they rented a little flat, a room on West 86th Street, and started looking for work. At the end of the year, they decided to elope. They went to Elkton, Maryland and got married. “It was a romantic moment and we had, as many couples do, our favorite song: “More Than You Know.”

Donn found some club engagements, but he claimed that he could only play with bands where a spot could also be guaranteed for Helen, or things simply wouldn’t work out due to her behavioral issues.

In order to work alongside Helen, Donn organized a trio with guitarist Sammy Herman and bassist Joe Bianco, who under the name The Donn Trio and Helen made some disco appearances and promotional recordings at Nola studio. But work was scarce, and Donn disbanded the trio after four months to accept a job with Buddy Morrow, who was reorganizing his orchestra, and happened to be a favorite in musical circles. This new job allowed Helen to be the featured vocalist, replacing Madeline Russell, and sharing the vocal spot with singer Don Casanave. “I wrote a few charts for Buddy’s band that Helen could sing,” recalled Donn. The band opened at the Indiana Roof in Indianapolis in May, and then in June they went on to appear at the Mary land Theatre, but Helen and Donn were constantly squabbling and eventually had to leave Morrow’s band. “Even with the complications of my marriage, this was actually a wonderful period in my life. I was young and in love. And most of the time I enjoyed my work.”

They suddenly found themselves without a steady job, which soon resulted in a bad financial situation. The need to work made Donn join the Blue Barron Orchestra, “one of the worst hotel orchestras I ever heard, but again, I needed the money… this time the circumstances would lead to Helen and me working together. She had gotten a job with another one of these bands under Chuck Foster. Through a series of phone calls, we worked it out so that the pianist with Foster would go with Blue Barron, and I’d join also Chuck Foster’s.” In October 22, 1947, the band went to play at the Roosevelt Hotel’s Blue Room in New Orleans for a 3-week engagement. Followed with other appearances around the country until the spring of 1948.

Then Helen and Donn went back to San Francisco. “She was from that area and that’s where we had met. I knew she had a child from a previous marriage, but I didn’t know much about her past. Her son, Gordon, was still out there, and that was one of the reasons that we centered back there in 1948,” said Donn.

“I had become close to a couple of musicians of Chuck Foster’s band. Drummer Tony DeNicola and reed player Jon Setar, followed us out to California.” A new version of The Donn Trio and Helen was born. “We put in for our union cards in San Francisco. During the first three months, musicians could only do casual club dates; after the third month we could take a steady engagement.” In December, during the Christmas Season the Donn Trio and Helen appeared at Elks Headquarters in Reno, Nevada.

Later, in February, Donn and Helen went to Los Angeles to do a session for Dolphins of Hollywood, with Charles “Baron” Mingus & his Rhythm. Donn was the pianist and Helen was the featured vocalist in Irving Berlin’s ballad “Say It Isn’t So.”

Shortly after their return at the end of March, the Donn Trio and Helen went on to play at the Havana Room of the Bakersfield Inn. The group was together until May 1950, when Charlie Barnet made the couple an offer to tour the country with his band, which they did until July 7, 1951, touring from coast to coast. This resulted in Helen Carr’s only known filmed performance, a “Snader Telescription,” which also featured Donn Trenner playing piano.

At the end of the tour, Charlie Barnet disbanded the orchestra, and Donn and Helen returned to San Francisco. Before long she joined Carroll Davis show at the Chi Chi Club. Andy Marefos, the Chi Chi chief said “she’s Sensational! Terrific!” But there wasn’t much work for both of them in the Bay, and they often had to go down to Los Angeles to play a few dates.

“I wanted to get out of San Francisco to further my career,” said Donn. So, right after they got permission from the court that allowed them to take Helen’s young son out of the jurisdiction of Contra Costa, Alameda and Oakland Counties, they moved to Los Angeles. Donn found a regular job there with the Jerry Gray Orchestra, and together they performed at various Los Angeles venues, including an engagement at the Hollywood Palladium, in January 1952.

On Tuesday, April 6, 1952, Helen and Donn appeared with Paul Nero and his 10-piece orchestra, for a jazz concert at the Trianon Ballroom in San Diego. The band included members of the Howard Rumsey Lighthouse All Stars, such as altoist Bud Shank, tenorist Bob Cooper, and pianist Frank Patchen during their night off at The Lighthouse. Billboard’s Johnny Sippel wrote: “Little blonde Helen Carr carries all the vocal load and does a good job.”

At the end of April, Donn and Helen joined the famous tenor saxophonist Georgie Auld for a two-week engagement at The Haig, in a quartet with Red Callender on bass, and Larry Bunker on drums.

Donn had established a good relationship with Chuck Landis, owner of the Tiffany Club, who was interested in bringing in some great jazz names. He offered Donn the piano chair, and commissioned him to organize the groups that would accompany Charlie Parker and Stan Getz in their next visits.

Charlie Parker arrived in Los Angeles to open at the Tiffany club on May 29th for two weeks. To share the stage with Bird, Donn hired trumpeter Chet Baker, and put together a rhythm section with himself on piano, Harry Babasin, on bass, and Lawrence Marable, on drums. Helen also joined the group and sang some songs.

On June 7, 1952, Helen appeared again with Paul Nero’s band at the Rendezvous Balroom in Balboa Beach. Just a few days later, on June 16, Helen replaced Jeri Winters as Stan Kenton’s band vocalist, and left early August when Kay Brown, the ex-movie starlet and Maynard Ferguson’s frau came on board. An NBC radio remote featuring Helen with Kenton has been preserved from a performance at the Town Casino in Cleveland on June 22. We can hear Bob Snyder introducing Helen and asking her a few questions right before her rendition of “Everything Happens to Me.”

After few appearances with Skinnay Ennis’ orchestra, early in 1953, Helen gave up the band business to have a fling as a single, accompanied by the Donn Trenner Trio. She appeared at the Crescendo, and other Los Angeles venues, which gave her some popularity.

In January 1954 Donn joined Les Brown and His Band of Renown. “It was difficult for Helen when I was playing for Les because she wasn’t working, and felt the need to be with me all the time. Her constant distrust continued to put a serious strain on our marriage.”

At the end of the year, something important was going to happen in Helen’s career. Red Clyde, the recently appointed West Coast artist and repertoire of the New York Bethlehem Records after recorded in a few weeks instrumental albums by Los Angeles musicians like Conte Candoli, Stan Levey, Charlie Mariano, was looking for a girl singer. Donn Trenner found out, introduced Helen to Clyde, and proposed to arrange an audition. Hearing Helen, Clyde did not hesitate to sign her a contract with the label and immediately scheduled the first recording date.

Helen arrived at the Radio Recorders studio for her recording debut on January 5, 1955. There she met a quintet of stars that Donn had organized to accompany her. Joining Donn at the piano were Don Fagerquist, trumpet; Charlie Mariano, alto sax; Max Bennett, bass; and Stan Levey, drums. On that day, eight songs were recorded that came out on the 10-inch album, Down in the Depths of the 90th Floor.

Burt Korall in his review of the album for Metronome magazine, wrote “Although Miss Carr has a distance to go development-wise; a facility with changes, a fresh, charming quality that smacks of enthusiastic youth, and her fundamental relaxation in the jazz environment make it very much worth the trip.”

Also at Radio Recorders, on January 27, she recorded two songs: “They Say” and “Do You Know Why?” included on Max Bennett's first album as a leader, with Frank Rosolino, trombone; Charlie Mariano, alto sax; Claude Williamson, piano; Max Bennett, bass; and Stan Levey, drums.

In November 11, 1955, again at Radio Recorders, Helen recorded her second Bethlehem album, Why Do I Love You?, with excellent piano-less backing provided by guitarist Howard Roberts, bassist Red Mitchell, and trumpeter Cappy Lewis.

“After this release, we decided to go back to New York again to see if we could get something going with her career. I took leave from Les Brown’s band and we headed back East, and that’s when our marriage really got rocky.”

Helen Carr remained in New York after the breakup, and signed with MGM early in the fall of 1957. She recorded only one single, in October, which included It’s Beautiful, and Love Is a Serious Business. She was backed by an orchestra conducted by LeRoy Holmes, and in an attempt to reach a broader audience the tunes and arrangements had a certain pop flair. The label pushed for promotion in radio shows, contacting DJs, and generally doing everything they could to give
Carr a fighting chance and some exposure, but despite their effort, the record did not have the expected success and went largely unnoticed among the bunch MGM new releases.

In October 1959, Helen Carr traveled West once more, as she was scheduled to appear at the then brand new Greg’s Hi-Life Supper Club in Bakersfield, California. That same year she worked with Charlie Barnet again. “My band activities continued to shrink. There were occasional weekend gigs, and once in a while MCA put together some dates in the East that made it profitable enough to go
through the anguish of organizing a big band and enduring all the traveling the dates required.” During a 17-day tour with Barnet, Helen found out that she had cancer.

Donn Trenner stated that he visited Helen in the hospital approximately two weeks before she passed away, at age 37. She was buried in an unnamed grave in Linden, New Jersey. Even though she died so young and remained largely unknown outside of the West Coast, Helen left an undeniable mark as a jazz vocalist. Everyone who heard her sing was captivated by her completely natural talent and her individual approach to jazz.

Helen Carr was one of those singers with an innate jazz feeling, sensitive phrasing, and a warm, unaffected sound, which she skillfully used to stamp her personality at any beat and fill each performance with an inescapable atmosphere. Her career was short, and her recordings scarce, but they are still an eloquent example of how she understood a song and was able to communicate its essence to the listener."

—Jordi Pujol (From the inside liner notes of FSRCD 1103)