Biography
Emily Remler distinguished herself as an American jazz guitarist through her rock-solid timing, powerful swing feel, and deep command of bebop, hard bop, and Brazilian idioms such as bossa nova and samba. An early follower of Wes Montgomery’s phrasing and approach, she earned a degree from the Berklee College of Music. After relocating first to New Orleans and later to New York, she performed alongside Astrud Gilberto and Nancy Wilson for several years while also recording with the Clayton Brothers. Under contract with Concord she delivered five albums bearing her name: Firefly (1981), Transitions (1984), Catwalk (1985), Together with Larry Coryell (1985), and East to Wes (1988).
Born in Manhattan in 1957 and raised in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Remler grew up with a father who worked as a meat broker and a mother who managed the household. At eight she began experimenting on her brother’s acoustic guitar; after grasping basic chord progressions she taught herself, at first by ear, to replicate phrases from rock players such as Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix. Eventually her brother passed along his Gibson ES-330 hollow-body instrument.
After finishing high school ahead of schedule, the seventeen-year-old enrolled in a two-year program at Berklee; there she discovered and then immersed herself in the work of jazz guitarists ranging from Charlie Christian, Pat Martino, and Herb Ellis to Wes Montgomery, Grant Green, and George Benson. While in New Orleans she approached Herb Ellis after a performance; he invited her to play, expressed surprise at her developed maturity and swing, and soon recommended her to Concord founder Carl Jefferson. Jefferson placed her on the opening night of the Concord Jazz Festival with Ellis, Howard Roberts, Tal Farlow, Barney Kessel, and others; at twenty-four she impressed the audience with her technical command and hard-bop drive.
Remler moved from New Orleans to New York in 1979, forming a trio with bassist Eddie Gomez and drummer Bob Moses. She also secured work accompanying Brazilian legend Astrud Gilberto and vocalist Nancy Wilson. Guitarist John Scofield, impressed by her playing, suggested her to bassist John Clayton; he and brother Jay brought her to Los Angeles for their second album, It’s All in the Family. That same year she recorded and issued her Concord debut Firefly with pianist Hank Jones, bassist Bob Maize, and drummer Jake Hanna. The set mixed two originals, a solo reading of “A Taste of Honey,” a version of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Look to the Sky,” and interpretations of Wes Montgomery’s “Movin’ Along” plus pieces by Duke Ellington, McCoy Tyner, and Horace Silver—the blueprint she followed on most subsequent recordings. As jazz publications began praising her work, she married pianist Monty Alexander and toured throughout the United States and Europe. In 1982 she released Take Two, featuring pianist James Williams, drummer Terry Clarke, and bassist Don Thompson; the album included her tribute to John Coltrane on Mongo Santamaria’s “Afro Blue” along with compositions by Alexander, Tyner, Cannonball Adderley, and Dexter Gordon, plus two originals.
Brimming with assurance in 1984, Remler issued Transitions with a full quartet that included Gomez, Moses, and trumpeter John D’earth. She moved away from straight bebop, writing half the material herself and drawing the remainder from Keith Jarrett, Ellington, and Sam Jones; reviewers responded enthusiastically and sales proved solid. Following her divorce from Alexander that year, she released the quartet album Catwalk, the first of her records devoted entirely to her own compositions. Recorded with the same ensemble, it earned acclaim from Tokyo to Miami, received jazz-radio airplay, and opened doors to international festivals. She also appeared on bassist Ray Brown’s Soular Energy. A subsequent tour with guitarist Larry Coryell, with whom she shared a brief romance, produced the 1986 duo album Together; it contained two Coryell pieces and various covers but no Remler originals, yet critics praised the match of skills between the veteran and his younger partner.
During the same period she recorded with pianist John Colianni and Rosemary Clooney while continuing club and festival work. At the close of 1986 she left New York for Pittsburgh, serving as artist-in-residence at Duquesne University and studying with Bob Brookmeyer at the University of Pittsburgh. Returning to New York in 1988, she rented an apartment in Brooklyn and performed with pianist David Benoit and singer Susannah McCorkle. She also cut East to Wes with pianist Jones, bassist Buster Williams, and drummer Marvin “Smitty” Smith. A tribute to Montgomery’s influence, the album contained three Remler originals including the title track plus material by Clifford Brown, Tadd Dameron, Claude Thornhill, Blossom Dearie, and Oscar Hammerstein; longtime followers noted striking growth in her harmonic language and structural daring. In the wake of its strong reception she began exploring electronics and guitar synthesizers.
She appeared on McCorkle’s Sabia and saxophonist Richie Cole’s Bossa International, then left Concord for the Houston-based Justice Records and recorded This Is Me, her seventh and final album. A clear departure from earlier work, it reflected her growing interest in contemporary jazz production and arrangements supplied by Russ Freeman and Benoit, both of whom also contributed keyboards. A large rotating cast of studio musicians participated, among them Toto drummer Jeff Porcaro and Brazilian guitarist Romero Lubambo. Remler did not live to see the album’s release; while touring Australia she collapsed and died at age thirty-two.
Issued posthumously, This Is Me reached number twenty on the Contemporary Jazz Albums chart and drew mixed critical reactions. Many reviewers applauded her versatility and harmonic exploration, yet Leonard Feather questioned how much of the album’s identity belonged to Remler rather than her arrangers. She had written nine of its eleven tracks and co-written the remaining two with Benoit and pianist Bill O’Connell. The relaxed, lyrical mood blended contemporary and Brazilian jazz with African and Caribbean polyrhythms within an expansive harmonic framework that demonstrated advanced compositional ability.
Thirty-four years after her death, producer and “Jazz Detective” Zev Feldman, together with Bill Milkowski and George Klabin, issued Cookin’ at the Queens: Live in Las Vegas 1984 & 1988 on Resonance Records. The set presented two outstanding radio broadcasts from the Four Queens Hotel and Casino on Las Vegas’ original Strip, featuring Remler with a quartet in 1984 and a trio in 1988. In addition to the original programs, the producers added more than sixty minutes of previously excised material and packaged everything with liner notes by Milkowski and tributes from fellow musicians. The deluxe edition appeared in multiple formats on Record Store Day in November 2024.
Born in Manhattan in 1957 and raised in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Remler grew up with a father who worked as a meat broker and a mother who managed the household. At eight she began experimenting on her brother’s acoustic guitar; after grasping basic chord progressions she taught herself, at first by ear, to replicate phrases from rock players such as Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix. Eventually her brother passed along his Gibson ES-330 hollow-body instrument.
After finishing high school ahead of schedule, the seventeen-year-old enrolled in a two-year program at Berklee; there she discovered and then immersed herself in the work of jazz guitarists ranging from Charlie Christian, Pat Martino, and Herb Ellis to Wes Montgomery, Grant Green, and George Benson. While in New Orleans she approached Herb Ellis after a performance; he invited her to play, expressed surprise at her developed maturity and swing, and soon recommended her to Concord founder Carl Jefferson. Jefferson placed her on the opening night of the Concord Jazz Festival with Ellis, Howard Roberts, Tal Farlow, Barney Kessel, and others; at twenty-four she impressed the audience with her technical command and hard-bop drive.
Remler moved from New Orleans to New York in 1979, forming a trio with bassist Eddie Gomez and drummer Bob Moses. She also secured work accompanying Brazilian legend Astrud Gilberto and vocalist Nancy Wilson. Guitarist John Scofield, impressed by her playing, suggested her to bassist John Clayton; he and brother Jay brought her to Los Angeles for their second album, It’s All in the Family. That same year she recorded and issued her Concord debut Firefly with pianist Hank Jones, bassist Bob Maize, and drummer Jake Hanna. The set mixed two originals, a solo reading of “A Taste of Honey,” a version of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Look to the Sky,” and interpretations of Wes Montgomery’s “Movin’ Along” plus pieces by Duke Ellington, McCoy Tyner, and Horace Silver—the blueprint she followed on most subsequent recordings. As jazz publications began praising her work, she married pianist Monty Alexander and toured throughout the United States and Europe. In 1982 she released Take Two, featuring pianist James Williams, drummer Terry Clarke, and bassist Don Thompson; the album included her tribute to John Coltrane on Mongo Santamaria’s “Afro Blue” along with compositions by Alexander, Tyner, Cannonball Adderley, and Dexter Gordon, plus two originals.
Brimming with assurance in 1984, Remler issued Transitions with a full quartet that included Gomez, Moses, and trumpeter John D’earth. She moved away from straight bebop, writing half the material herself and drawing the remainder from Keith Jarrett, Ellington, and Sam Jones; reviewers responded enthusiastically and sales proved solid. Following her divorce from Alexander that year, she released the quartet album Catwalk, the first of her records devoted entirely to her own compositions. Recorded with the same ensemble, it earned acclaim from Tokyo to Miami, received jazz-radio airplay, and opened doors to international festivals. She also appeared on bassist Ray Brown’s Soular Energy. A subsequent tour with guitarist Larry Coryell, with whom she shared a brief romance, produced the 1986 duo album Together; it contained two Coryell pieces and various covers but no Remler originals, yet critics praised the match of skills between the veteran and his younger partner.
During the same period she recorded with pianist John Colianni and Rosemary Clooney while continuing club and festival work. At the close of 1986 she left New York for Pittsburgh, serving as artist-in-residence at Duquesne University and studying with Bob Brookmeyer at the University of Pittsburgh. Returning to New York in 1988, she rented an apartment in Brooklyn and performed with pianist David Benoit and singer Susannah McCorkle. She also cut East to Wes with pianist Jones, bassist Buster Williams, and drummer Marvin “Smitty” Smith. A tribute to Montgomery’s influence, the album contained three Remler originals including the title track plus material by Clifford Brown, Tadd Dameron, Claude Thornhill, Blossom Dearie, and Oscar Hammerstein; longtime followers noted striking growth in her harmonic language and structural daring. In the wake of its strong reception she began exploring electronics and guitar synthesizers.
She appeared on McCorkle’s Sabia and saxophonist Richie Cole’s Bossa International, then left Concord for the Houston-based Justice Records and recorded This Is Me, her seventh and final album. A clear departure from earlier work, it reflected her growing interest in contemporary jazz production and arrangements supplied by Russ Freeman and Benoit, both of whom also contributed keyboards. A large rotating cast of studio musicians participated, among them Toto drummer Jeff Porcaro and Brazilian guitarist Romero Lubambo. Remler did not live to see the album’s release; while touring Australia she collapsed and died at age thirty-two.
Issued posthumously, This Is Me reached number twenty on the Contemporary Jazz Albums chart and drew mixed critical reactions. Many reviewers applauded her versatility and harmonic exploration, yet Leonard Feather questioned how much of the album’s identity belonged to Remler rather than her arrangers. She had written nine of its eleven tracks and co-written the remaining two with Benoit and pianist Bill O’Connell. The relaxed, lyrical mood blended contemporary and Brazilian jazz with African and Caribbean polyrhythms within an expansive harmonic framework that demonstrated advanced compositional ability.
Thirty-four years after her death, producer and “Jazz Detective” Zev Feldman, together with Bill Milkowski and George Klabin, issued Cookin’ at the Queens: Live in Las Vegas 1984 & 1988 on Resonance Records. The set presented two outstanding radio broadcasts from the Four Queens Hotel and Casino on Las Vegas’ original Strip, featuring Remler with a quartet in 1984 and a trio in 1988. In addition to the original programs, the producers added more than sixty minutes of previously excised material and packaged everything with liner notes by Milkowski and tributes from fellow musicians. The deluxe edition appeared in multiple formats on Record Store Day in November 2024.
Albums
Retrospective Volume Two: "Compositions"
1991
Retrospective, Volume One: "Standards"
1991
East To Wes
1988
Together
1985
Transitions (Reissue)
1984
Firefly
1981
Live
