Emily Remler
Encyclopedia
Emily Remler was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 jazz guitarist
Jazz guitarist
Jazz guitarists are guitar players who play jazz music on the guitar using an approach to playing chords, melodies, and improvised solo lines which is called jazz guitar playing. The guitar has fulfilled the roles of accompanist and soloist in small and large ensembles and also as an unaccompanied...

 who rose to prominence in the 1980s. She recorded seven albums of hard bop
Hard bop
Hard bop is a style of jazz that is an extension of bebop music. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s to describe a new current within jazz which incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospel music, and blues, especially in the saxophone and piano...

, jazz standard
Jazz standard
Jazz standards are musical compositions which are an important part of the musical repertoire of jazz musicians, in that they are widely known, performed, and recorded by jazz musicians, and widely known by listeners. There is no definitive list of jazz standards, and the list of songs deemed to be...

s and fusion
Jazz fusion
Jazz fusion is a musical fusion genre that developed from mixing funk and R&B rhythms and the amplification and electronic effects of rock, complex time signatures derived from non-Western music and extended, typically instrumental compositions with a jazz approach to lengthy group improvisations,...

 guitar.

Early Life and Influences

Born in New York City, Remler began to play the guitar at the age of ten. Initially inspired by rock artists such as Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...

 and Johnny Winter
Johnny Winter
John Dawson "Johnny" Winter III is an American blues guitarist, singer, and producer. Best known for his late 1960s and 1970s high-energy blues-rock albums and live performances, Winter also produced three Grammy Award-winning albums for blues legend Muddy Waters...

 as well as other popular styles of music, she experienced a musical epiphany during her studies from 1974 to 1976 at the Berklee College of Music
Berklee College of Music
Berklee College of Music, located in Boston, Massachusetts, is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known primarily as a school for jazz, rock and popular music, it also offers college-level courses in a wide range of contemporary and historic styles, including hip...

 in Boston, Massachusetts. She began to listen to such legendary jazz greats as Wes Montgomery
Wes Montgomery
John Leslie "Wes" Montgomery was an American jazz guitarist. He is widely considered one of the major jazz guitarists, emerging after such seminal figures as Django Reinhardt and Charlie Christian and influencing countless others, including Pat Martino, George Benson, Russell Malone, Emily...

, Pat Martino
Pat Martino
Pat Martino is an Italian-American jazz guitarist and composer within the post bop, fusion, mainstream jazz, soul jazz and hard bop idioms.-Biography:...

, Charlie Christian
Charlie Christian
Charles Henry "Charlie" Christian was an American swing and jazz guitarist.Christian was an important early performer on the electric guitar, and is cited as a key figure in the development of bebop and cool jazz. He gained national exposure as a member of the Benny Goodman Sextet and Orchestra...

, Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...

 and John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...

 and took up jazz with a ferocious intensity, practicing almost constantly and never looked back. After graduating Berklee at age 18 she started her professional career touring around the USA.

Career

Remler's first significant and formative step as a fledgling professional musician was to settle in New Orleans where she played in blues and jazz clubs working with bands such as FourPlay and Little Queenie and the Percolators before beginning her recording career in 1981. She was championed by guitar great Herb Ellis, who referred to her as "the new superstar of guitar". Ellis introduced her to the world at the Concord, CA Jazz Festival in 1978.

In an interview with People magazine, she once said of herself: "I may look like a nice Jewish girl from New Jersey, but inside I’m a 50-year-old, heavyset black man with a big thumb, like Wes Montgomery." ~People Mag. 1982~

Recorded for the famous Concord
Concord Jazz
Concord Jazz is a subsidiary of Concord Records, owned by Concord Music Group.-Dozens of albums:*Charlie Byrd*Ruby Braff*Dave McKenna*Marian McPartland*Rosemary Clooney*Scott Hamilton*Tito Puente*George Shearing*Gene Harris*Mel Tormé*Monty Alexander...

 label, Remler's albums showcase the diverse influences of a fast-developing artist who quickly attained a distinctive jazz style on the guitar through her interpretations of jazz standards and her own compositions. Her first album as a band leader, Firefly
Firefly (Emily Remler album)
Firefly was Jazz musician Emily Remler's debut album with Concord Records. Firefly was recorded in San Francisco, CA during April of 1981. Released at age 24, this was her first album as a leader. She was joined by pianist Hank Jones, bassist Bob Maize, and drummer Jake Hanna.A review by Allmusic...

, won immediate acclaim and her bop guitar on the follow-up, Take Two, was equally well-received. Transitions and Catwalk traced the emergence of a more individual voice, with many striking original tunes, while her love of Wes Montgomery
Wes Montgomery
John Leslie "Wes" Montgomery was an American jazz guitarist. He is widely considered one of the major jazz guitarists, emerging after such seminal figures as Django Reinhardt and Charlie Christian and influencing countless others, including Pat Martino, George Benson, Russell Malone, Emily...

 shone through on the stylish East to Wes.

When the rhythm section is floating, I'll float too, and I'll get a wonderful feeling in my stomach. If the rhythm section is really swinging, it's such a great feeling, you just want to laugh —Emily Remler


In addition to her recording career as a band leader and composer, Remler played with artists as diverse as Larry Coryell
Larry Coryell
Larry Coryell is an American jazz fusion guitarist.-Biography:Coryell was born in Galveston, Texas. He graduated from Richland High School, in Richland, Washington, where he played in local bands The Jailers, The Rumblers, The Royals, and The Flames. He also played with The Checkers from nearby...

, with whom she recorded an album entitled Together, and the singer Rosemary Clooney
Rosemary Clooney
Rosemary Clooney was an American singer and actress. She came to prominence in the early 1950s with the novelty hit "Come On-a My House" written by William Saroyan and his cousin Ross Bagdasarian , which was followed by other pop numbers such as "Botch-a-Me" Rosemary Clooney (May 23, 1928 –...

. She played on Broadway for the Los Angeles version of the show 'Sophisticated Ladies' from 1981 to 1982 and produced two popular guitar instruction videos. She also toured for several years in the early eighties as guitarist for Astrud Gilberto
Astrud Gilberto
Astrud Gilberto is a Brazilian samba and bossa nova singer. She is well known for the Grammy Award-winning song "The Girl from Ipanema".-Biography:...

. In 1985, she won the ‘Guitarist Of The Year’ award in Down Beat
Down Beat
Down Beat is an American magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond" to indicate its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chicago, Illinois...

 magazine’s international poll. In 1988, she was 'Artist in Residence' at Duquesne University
Duquesne University
Duquesne University of the Holy Spirit is a private Catholic university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded by members of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, Duquesne first opened its doors as the Pittsburgh Catholic College of the Holy Ghost in October 1878 with an enrollment of...

 and, in 1989, received Berklee's Distinguished Alumni award.

She married Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...

n jazz pianist Monty Alexander
Monty Alexander
Monty Alexander is a jazz pianist and melodica player. His playing has a strong Caribbean influence and swinging feeling, but he has also been influenced by Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, Wynton Kelly, and Ahmad Jamal.-Biography:Alexander discovered the piano at the age of 4, taking classical music...

 in 1981, the marriage ending in 1984.

Her first guitar was her elder brother's Gibson ES-330
Gibson ES-330
The Gibson ES-330 is a thinline hollowbody electric guitar model produced by the Gibson Guitar Corporation.Though similar in appearance to the popular Gibson ES-335 semi-hollow guitar, the ES-330 was a fairly different guitar in construction and sound...

, and she played a Borys B120 hollow body electric towards the end of the 1980s. Her acoustic guitars included a 1984 Collectors Series Ovation
Ovation
The ovation was a lower form of the Roman triumph. Ovations were granted, when war was not declared between enemies on the level of states, when an enemy was considered basely inferior or when the general conflict was resolved with little to no bloodshed or danger to the army itself.The general...

 and a nylon string Korocusci classical guitar that she used for playing bossa nova
Bossa nova
Bossa nova is a style of Brazilian music. Bossa nova acquired a large following in the 1960s, initially consisting of young musicians and college students...

.

When asked how she wanted to be remembered she remarked:

"Good compositions, memorable guitar playing and my contributions as a woman in music…. but the music is everything, and it has nothing to do with politics or the women’s liberation movement."

She appealed to all audiences with her wide understanding of all forms of jazz. She gained respect from fellow musicians and critics because of her dedication, enthusiasm and remarkable skill.

Remler, who was a heroin addict, died of heart failure at the age of 32 at the Connells Point home of musician Ed Gaston, while on tour in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

.

Two tribute albums were recorded after her death, Just Friends volume one and two, featuring contributions from Herb Ellis
Herb Ellis
Mitchell Herbert "Herb" Ellis was an American jazz guitarist. Perhaps best known for his 1950s membership in the trio of pianist Oscar Peterson, Ellis was also a staple of west-coast studio recording sessions, and was described by critic Scott Yanow as "an excellent bop-based guitarist with a...

, David Benoit
David Benoit
David Benoit, is an American jazz fusion/smooth jazz pianist, composer and producer from Los Angeles, California. He has been nominated for five Grammy Awards...

, Bill O'Connell
Bill O'Connell
Bill O'Connell is a jazz pianist and bandleader. He is most associated with Latin jazz and also hard bop. He studied piano at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, but has mostly lived in NYC or Long Island. He worked for Chet Baker and Sonny Rollins at early stages in his career...

 and David Bromberg
David Bromberg
David Bromberg is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter. Bromberg has an eclectic style, playing bluegrass, blues, folk, jazz, country and western, and rock and roll equally well. He is known for his quirky, humorous lyrics, and the ability to play rhythm and lead guitar at the...

 among many others. In 2006 the Skip Heller Quartet recorded a song called "Emily Remler" in her memory.

Studio Albums

  • 1981: Firefly
    Firefly (Emily Remler album)
    Firefly was Jazz musician Emily Remler's debut album with Concord Records. Firefly was recorded in San Francisco, CA during April of 1981. Released at age 24, this was her first album as a leader. She was joined by pianist Hank Jones, bassist Bob Maize, and drummer Jake Hanna.A review by Allmusic...

  • 1982: Take Two
  • 1983: Transitions
  • 1984: Catwalk
  • 1985: Together - with Larry Coryell
    Larry Coryell
    Larry Coryell is an American jazz fusion guitarist.-Biography:Coryell was born in Galveston, Texas. He graduated from Richland High School, in Richland, Washington, where he played in local bands The Jailers, The Rumblers, The Royals, and The Flames. He also played with The Checkers from nearby...

  • 1988: East to Wes
  • 1990: This is Me

Compilations

  • 1991: Retrospective, Volume One: Standards
  • 1991: Retrospective, Volume Two: Compositions

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK