In Search of Helen Carr

“With a million neon rainbows burning below me
And a million blazing taxis raising a roar
Here I sit, above the town
In my pet pailletted gown
Down in the depths on the ninetieth floor…"

- An excerpt from a composition by Cole Porter,
written for the 1936 Broadway musical, Red, Hot, and Blue

When one comes across the name Helen Carr, to many people it often has a very vague ring of familiarity to it. Who was that? Was she in films? In music?
 
But in reality, most people don’t know Helen Carr. Nor have they probably seen or heard any of her work. To those who know of her, she has an aura of legend and mystery – principally because there is so little known about her, and because of her premature death – the cause of which very little is also publicly known.

Helen Carr was a jazz singer. She was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. Various sources report multiple dates for the year of her birth, ranging from 1922 to 1928. Her second husband, pianist Donn Trenner indicated that she had, “…never been honest about her age.”[1] My guess is that 1922 is probably the most accurate date, making her five years older than Trenner.

Helen Carr, Sammy Herman, Joe Bianco and Donn Trenner in New York City, February 1947
Photograph by William F. Gottlieb

She was attractive and had a pleasing voice, but she would not be my favorite type of jazz singer. Her voice was soft and breathy – almost sounding like a bluesy Marilyn Monroe. She was clearly a mature singer who was in command of her material and was quite poised on the bandstand. Donn Trenner opined that he could hear the influence of Billie Holiday in her voice. I think that’s a bit of a stretch, but she did have a sultry quality, and she could interpret music with great feeling.[2]
 
The jazz vocalists I truly prefer are always women, but are also those who can project with great clarity – and who can swing – even on ballads. That is why my favorite will probably always be Ella Fitzgerald, followed very closely by the best jazz vocalist working today, Vanessa Rubin.
 
When Donn Trenner first met Helen Carr, it was on a double-date with Jimmy Hanson, a tenor saxophone player with the Ted Fio Rito band in 1945. They had just finished their gig at the Golden Gate Theater in San Francisco, and drove to the Mondre Café in Oakland with two women they had met earlier. Trenner was driving the car, and when he looked at Helen Carr in the rear view mirror seated on the back seat with Hanson, he knew that she was the woman he really wanted.[3]

At the time, she was an operator for, “… a telephone service in bars and late-night clubs where one could dial-up a song. You told the operator what song you wanted to hear and they would play it from their central station.”[4]
 
Shortly thereafter, Donn Trenner was drafted into the military, but he continued to date and remain in touch with Helen Carr. At one point he was transferred to Scott Air Force Base near Belleville, Illinois about 25 miles east of downtown St. Louis, and Helen moved to the Midwest to be near him.

The Chase Park Plaza Hotel in St. Louis, Missouri and accompanying Steeplechase Room - just one of a number of entertainment venues that have been part of this iconic hotel for decades.

She moved into a place next to the Chase Park Plaza Hotel in St. Louis. According to Donn Trenner’s autobiography, “They had a venue called the Steeplechase Room with a trio lead by a great guitarist, Joe Schirmer. That’s where Helen learned one of Cole Porter’s lesser-known songs, “Down in the Depths of 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.”[5]
 
That song became one that is most associated with Helen Carr, as hers is arguably the definitive version – in much the same manner as Artie Shaw’s version of Cole Porter’s “Begin the Beguine” is certainly the most definitive version of that. Interesting to note, by-the-way, that neither song follows the standard 32-bar format.
 
When Donn Trenner was discharged from the military in the autumn of 1946, he and Helen Carr moved to New York City to a small flat on West 86th Street and began looking for work. Several months later they eloped, getting married in Elkton, Maryland.[6]
 
But unfortunately from the outset, even before they got married, there were behaviors exhibited by Helen that ultimately doomed the marriage. According to Trenner, she, “… reacted in negative ways whenever she was in the presence of other women.” He at first attributed it to insecurity, but he soon realized that it was more than jealousy, and characterized it as a neurosis.”[7] Remember too as noted earlier, the wide variation in her reported dates of birth, as she frequently, apparently misled about her age. I won’t elaborate on this behavior in terms of her jealousy and mistrust any further here, but for those who wish to research this aspect of Helen Carr’s life further, I would refer you to Donn Trenner’s autobiography.

During this period, Donn Trenner claimed he could only play with bands where a spot could also be guaranteed for Helen Carr, or things just wouldn’t work out given her behavioral issues. They played with Blue Barron and Chuck Foster, and ultimately got a call to join Buddy Morrow in 1947.

After the work with Buddy Morrow ended in 1948, the couple moved back to San Francisco where they had first met, and where Helen had a child named Gordon from her first marriage still residing. Even at this point, Trenner claims that he did not know much about Helen Carr’s past.[8]

An East Coast edition of The Donn Trio and Helen, featuring Sammy Herman and Joe Bianco, in New York City.

The West Coast, and presumably original edition of The Donn Trio and Helen, with John Setar on reeds and Tony DeNicola on drums, late 1947 or 1948.

Once back in San Francisco, they put together their own group, known as The Donn Trio and Helen, which was together for about a year when Charlie Barnet made the couple an offer to tour with his big band, which they did during 1950-51. This resulted in Helen Carr’s only known filmed performance, a Snader Telescription, which also included Donn Trenner playing piano.

The only known filmed performance of Helen Carr, here with Charlie Barnet & His Orchestra, and with Donn Trenner on piano.

There was some excellent research done on the Obscure & Neglected Female Singers of Jazz & Standards forum that indicated while in San Francisco, an article in the Oakland Tribune on Friday, July 22, 1949 reported that Helen Carr was awarded five weeks’ custody of her son who was living in a foster home after her divorce from her first husband, Walter A. Carr, a chef in Orinda, CA on November 24, 1947. (Note that according to Donn Trenner’s autobiography, they were married in Elkton, Maryand in late 1946 or very early 1947.)[9]
 
The California Birth Index indicates that Helen’s son, Gordon William Carr, was born on August 2, 1942, and that Helen Carr’s maiden name was Huber.[10]
 
The Oakland Tribune on Friday, June 13, 1941 recorded the marriage license issued to Helen M. Huber (age 19) to Walter Carr, both of Oakland. So that seems to solve the mystery of her birth year (e.g., 1922).[11]
 
Researching her name in the 1930 and 1940 Census and other newspaper records indicate that she was living with her parents in Danville, Illinois in 1930; in Kansas City, Missouri when her father died in 1936; in Seattle, Washington with her widowed mother in 1940, working as an usherette in a theater; and finally shown as being registered to vote in Alameda County, California with her mother by 1944 (though married in 1941).[12]
 
After leaving Charlie Barnet, Donn Trenner worked with Les Brown from 1954 to 1961. Helen was not part of the band, but she did travel frequently with her husband. During this period however, she picked up recording gigs and club dates when she was able, including two record albums for the Bethlehem label in 1955. The first being, Down in the Depths of the 90th Floor, followed by, Why Do I Love You. Interestingly, her picture never appeared on either album cover.

While in Philadelphia finishing an engagement with Oscar Pettiford and Anita O'Day, three days before Mothers’ Day, Trenner was in a greeting card store looking for a card for Helen when he was approached by a woman who asked him if he was ‘all right’ because he looked rather sad. They spoke for a few minutes, and while he claims she wasn’t soliciting for a date, she left him with a card that had her name and telephone number written on it in case he needed someone to talk with. While back in his hotel room, he was writing a thank you note to the woman when Helen, who had been in New York, unexpectedly arrived at his room to drive him back to Manhattan. So he shoved the half-written note under a pillow, and of course his wife found it.[13] A very bad move indeed. All of this only reinforced Helen Carr’s mistrust in him.
 
Nonetheless, they headed off back to New York from Philadelphia in their blue Buick, and an argument ensued in the car, to the point where she was apparently beating Trenner over the head with her shoe while he was driving. As he approached the toll plaza to the Pennsylvania Turnpike, he pulled off to the side of the road, dove out of the car and ran for cover in some bushes, all of this occurring at about 2 o’clock in the morning.[14]
 
According to Trenner, she drove back and forth several times looking for him while he was hiding in the bushes, until finally getting on the Turnpike and returning to New York alone. Trenner returned to Philadelphia for the night.
 
The woman who Donn Trenner spoke with in the greeting card store was named Joan Martin, who also happened to be a close friend of Chan Parker, Charlie Parker’s wife. Chan lived in New Hope, Pennsylvania and owned an ice cream parlor called the Bird’s Nest. That was where he ultimately found Joan Martin who came back to Philadelphia and took Trenner to her apartment until he returned to New York.
 
While back in New York, Trenner claims he found papers proving that Helen Carr had never gotten divorced from her first husband (although this would appear to be contrary to the Oakland Tribune article from 1949), so he was able to get his marriage to Helen annulled. All of this would have been around 1958. Chan Parker married Phil Woods shortly thereafter (Charlie Parker died in 1955) and left New Hope, PA for France in 1959.

After the separation, Helen Carr remained in New York, and ultimately worked with Charlie Barnet again. During a 17-day tour with Barnet, she found out that she had cancer. Donn Trenner stated that he visited Helen in the hospital approximately two weeks before she died.[15]
 
And so Helen Carr died in a hospital from cancer, apparently in New York City. She would have been about 38 years old.
 
Donn Trenner did not attend her funeral, though he states that her son Gordon put his photograph in her casket.

Miss Helen Carr   1922-1960

You know, of the profiles of musicians that I've done in this Blog so far, whether it be Louis Armstrong or Slim Gaillard, and now Helen Carr - in addition to their musical achievements, I always try to take a look at their story – their humanness. And this particular story makes me very sad.
 
We’ll never really know the fears, the profound sadness, and for that matter, the demons that haunted Helen Carr throughout her short life. She’s not here to tell us her side of the story. But I can also only hope that she had much joy as well. It pains me profoundly that she apparently died essentially alone and forgotten.
 
This young girl, who lost her father at about age 14, and who traveled around the country with her mother until ultimately settling in northern California, became a big band and a club jazz singer who recorded two albums that were reissued on CD, and that are still in print – almost 60 years after her death.
 
And there still remains a cadre of jazz researchers and aficionados who want to ensure that this lady – this sensitive and talented human being, is not forgotten. And a worthy aspiration that is, indeed.
 
Rest in true peace, Helen Carr.

Manhattan, I'm up a tree
The one that I've adored
Is bored
With me
Manhattan, I'm awfully nice
Nice people dine with me
And even twice
Yet the only one in the world I'm mad about
Talks of somebody else
And walks out

With a million neon rainbows burning below me
And a million blazing taxis raising a roar
Here I sit, above the town
In my pet pailletted gown
Down in the depths on the ninetieth floor
While the crowds at El Morocco punish the parquet
And at 21 the couples clamor for more
I'm deserted and depressed
In my regal eagle nest
Down in the depths on the ninetieth floor
When the only one you wanted wants another
What's the use of swank and cash in the bank galore?
Why, even the janitor's wife
Has a perfectly good love life
And here am I
Facing tomorrow
Alone with my sorrow
Down in the depths on the ninetieth floor.

Down in the Depths of the Ninetieth Floor
Composed by Cole Porter in 1936

NOTES
[1]   Donn Trenner and Tim Atherton, Leave It To Me… My Life In Music  (Albany, GA: BearManorMedia, 2014), 54.
[2]   Ibid., 29.
[3]   Ibid., 23.
[4]   Ibid., 23.
[5]   Ibid., 29.
[6]   Ibid., 31.
[7]   Ibid., 31.
[8]   Ibid., 34.
[9]  http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/obscure-neglected-female-singers-of-jazz-standards-1930s-to-1960s.588217/page-38
[10]   Ibid., 38, post by Eric Carlson.
[11]   Ibid., 38, post by Eric Carlson.
[12]   Ibid., 38, post by Eric Carlson.
[13]   Trenner and Atherton op. cit., 53
[14]   Trenner and Atherton op. cit., 53
[15]   Trenner and Atherton op. cit., 55

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