Emily Remler Madame Jazz .107-111
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Transcript of 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
92
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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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MADAAA
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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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MADAM