Emily Remler Madame Jazz .107-111

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Emily Remler

died while touring Australia in 1990. The cause of her

death, newspapers said,washeart failure.She had been daringand fullof

life,well liked

and

respected.

She was so

modest about

her

inordinate gift

that

she

remained vulnerable

and

childlikewhen

she

talked about

her

role

in the music world. She could trust her ears so completely that she con-

stantly guessed righ t in a Before and After test given to her by Leonard

Feather

for an

article

in

Jazz Timespub lished

in

June 1989.

But she

felt

apologetic about criticizing anybody's work.

I

gotta

say

that

the

time

is

funny. I don't know what's so truthful about me lately, she said while

analyzing

a

record ing. Who's playing bass?

He

must

be the

problem.

She worried whether the musicianson the recording would speakto her

again.

In the recording studios, however, she knew exactly what she w anted,

she said, and learned to stand up for her ideas.

Withall the globe-trotting shebegan to do in her earlytwenties,she

never had a

chance

to

establish

any

personal stability.

She

wanted

to

play.

Life in the fastlane at the top took its toll on the girlishwunderkind

Part

of this chapter

was

written about

her

before

she

died;

she was at a

point

where she was very concerned about developing healthful habits and

struggling

to leave her dalliance with drugs behind her. But she failed.

Ever since 1981 when Emily Remler assumed her place among the best

jazzguitarists,

she

began saying thatJohn Coltrane's music inspired her.

In the liner notes for her 1988 alb um , featuring

Dahoud,

written by

Clifford Brown, she said that she

also

identified with the trumpet's lyri-

cism. At that time, she hadn't yet mentioned how much the pianistsor

Wes

M ontgomeryinfluenced

her.

Pianists have had the biggest influence on me. Bill Evans, McCoy

Tyner, said the vivacious, aub urn -haire d you ng wom an in 1988, with her

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EMILY

R E M L E RAND THE

GUITARISTS

93

green

eyes

wide open,

as she

prepared

for a

week-long engagement

in

Greenwich Village's Blue Note.

Anyone who

listened

to the

1988 record, East

to

Wes,

on the

Concord label, with pianist HankJones,noticed instantlyhow herplaying

had

become

as

articulate

as

Jones's.

She

sounded

as if his

style

had

been

part of the aesthetic goal she had been working toward all along. Actually,

guitarist

Wes

Montgomery

had the

most

easily

discernible

influence on

her styleanddevelopment.

Hank

is my absolute

favoritepianist,

she said. As a great accompa-

nist, hecould put asidehis ego and aim to complement her, sheadded.

Even when

he

does

his

solos, he's doing something

I

just did. It's

as if he

gave

you a little present, then another, and another. He answers you

perfectly.

Smitty

andBuster

[drummer Marvin

Smitty

Smith

and

bass-

istBuster Williams, alsoon therecording]dothat too.

They

complement

you.

Anyone curious about howarticulate Remler becamein the 1980s,

when

she

emerged

as

thewoman guitarist,

as

well

as one of the

best jazz

guitarists,

should refer to her first album, Firefly, alsomade with Jones

on

Concord in 1981. However fine her work sounded when she first

became nationally known, her mellow, flowing work was more muted and

dreamier, without

her

later astounding clarity.

She

attributed

her

develop-

menttoyearsofworking constantly with wonderfulmusicians, including

pianist Monty Alexander's group and a duo with Larry Coryell.

I've wanted to sound likeapianist. I'mtaking composition lessons

from

a pianist, Aydin

Esen,

a stone genius. I'm a good listener and imita-

tor.

That's

how I

learn,

she

said. And I've copied pianists forever.

In the

early

1980s,soonafterher career was launched by her popular

recordsand personal appearances that attracted young audiences, Monty

Alexander hiredher toplay

guitar.

His articulateness attractedme to his

music, she

recalls.

Perhaps I'm a

true Virgo.

I

like things

very

clear.

She and Alexander married, and for two-and-a-half years, they traveled,

sometimes together, sometimes separately

for

long stretches. I'll meet

you

in

Paris was ausual gambit between them,shesaid. It was

hard

to be

married

and on the

road.

We had

haphazard meetings.

We had to get

used

to each other

again.

Her personal problems andtheir

effect

on the mar-

riage overwhelmed the couple's

efforts.

Divorced in 1984, they remained

friends,

she

said.

His musical

strengths

lefttheirmark on her, she thought.

(Thoughhe married again and rebuilt his

life,

he would be shaken and

saddened by her death.)

Her twenties wereadecadeofturmoil. I wasintroverted, because I

was young,

eager

toplease,and

scared.

I've been

through

a lot ofexperi-

ences now.

And

each year I've become more sure that

I

belong

on the


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EMILY

REMLER

AND THE

GUITARISTS

95

find her way in

unchartered

territorythe music

worldbuild

her play-

ing career and shore up her own confidence. She loved music so much, and

was so

good

at it, that she

sloughed

off all her youthful

bewilderment

when

she was playing.

Emily took two years to complete a

four-year

course at the Berklee

College of

Music.

At eighteen, she went home and played about eight bars

of a

very difficult song

for her

mother. Naive about Emily's fledgling

mastery, her

mother said, When

are you

going

to

sing? Where

are the

words?

With tapes and a metronome, Emily repaired to a room in Long

Beach Island, New

Jersey,

for the summer and spent all her time teaching

herselfto

play better

and

better.Then

she

headed

to New

Orleans, where

her guitarist boyfriend lived. She kept working and improving, playing

with

a

rhythm

and

blues group,

and

launching

her

career despite

the self-

criticism

she wasproneto. She hadenough confidenceto call Herb Ellis

one day

when

he wasperformingin

town.

She

asked

for a

lesson.

It

turned

out to be a jamsession. I'm goingtomakeyou a

star,

hetold her. Within

a

month, she was playing at the Concord Jazz Festival with Ellis, Charlie

Byrd,

Tal

Farlow,

and

Barney Kessel

for

colleagues. Afterward

she

kept

gigging. Soon Ellis helped her get a recording contract with Concord,

which encouraged and recorded her ever

afterward.

The

word about

her

smooth,

fluid,

soothing playing spread quickly.

The

haunting

feeling of A Taste of

Honey,

the

happy assuredness

of

Inception,

and the

mellowness

of In a

Sentimental

Mood

were rivet-

ing on her firstrecord.

With each succeeding record,

her

abilities ripened.

And the

fleetness

and rich, round tonesof herearly work seem almosta

blurry understatement compared with

her

later lean articulateness

and

improvisational ease.

Her own

compositions often bore

the

hallmarks

of

her

generations' intensity.

But she

pursued

a

course

in the

mainstream.

Hertributeto WesMontgomeryon her EasttoWes album showedher

devotion to the soulful,

improvisational genius

at the

heart

of

contempo-

rary jazz

guitar

playing. And she deepened her playing instead of diver-

sifying or

experimenting with styles

and

technology.

She

loved

it

when

reviewers called

her

smooth.

Remler was

subtle

but

strong :

that

re-

view

of her late

1980s

appearance at the Monterey Jazz Festival was her

favorite for awhile.

She felt

that

she was

living

the

good

life. She had left

Pittsburgh,

surprisingly

her

residence

for a

year

and a

half after

her

Manhattan apart-

ment became

a

cooperative.

She hadfriendsin

Pittsburgh,

a

pretty city,

she

said

of

that mysterious choice. Friends

in the

music world thought

it

wasa place she had gone to get her system cleansed of drugs and learn to

livein a

healthy style.

She had

missed

New York

City's Museum

of

Mod-


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Emily Remler Madame Jazz .107-111