Sometime in 1984, WKCR-FM's Bird Flight host Phil Schaap introduced me to guitarist Emily Remler. I was an early fan, and she was playing at the West End Bar near Columbia University where I had just completed grad school. As I recall, the place was half full and I was sitting in a booth when Phil graciously brought her over between sets.
What I remember most were her eyes. They seemed vulnerable, like a doe's. Looking at her, it was impossible to discern whether she felt she was a much bigger deal than the audience's size indicated or she was surprised anyone had bothered to show up at all. I learned later that Emily was like that—puzzled by life, its rules and her place in the jazz universe of male artists. A year or so after our meeting, drug addiction would begin to help her cope with that frustration and wound up killing her in 1990. But in 1984, I sensed a confused and enormously gifted soul.
That night at the West End, I remember going on about her albums Firefly and Take Two and how superb they were. Emily was gratified to hear that. After talking to her for about 10 minutes, I recall thinking that she seemed young for someone with her chops. The artists she gigged with must have felt the same way. Given the quality of her playing, she should have been in her late 50s. Instead, she was a year younger than I was at the time—29.
Firefly was recorded in 1981 and featured Hank Jones (p), Emily Remler (g), Bob Maize (b) and Jake Hanna (d). Take Two featured James Williams (p), Emily Remler (g), Don Thompson (b) and Terry Clarke (d), and came a year later. Both are exquisite.
Emily was born in Englewood Cliffs, N.J. A self-taught guitarist, she planned to become a graphic designer. But when she she graduated early from high school at age 16, she found herself admitted to the Berklee College of Music. In Boston, Emily squeezed four years into two and graduated at 18. Then she moved to New Orleans, where the level of musicianship pushed her to become exceptional. Guitarist Herb Ellis became a mentor after hearing her there, and she soon moved to New York.
Up north, Emily found herself in a crowded field of exceptional players. Guitarist John Scofield became another mentor and introduced her to bassist John Clayton, who invited her to San Francisco to record with him and his brother Jeff on their Concord album, It's All in the Family. It would be Emily's first recording. Impressed, Concord signed her to a recording contract. Firefly was first followed by Take Two. After her marriage to Monty Alexander fizzled in 1984, Emily entered a self-loathing phase and turned to drugs.
In 1986, Emily left New York for Pittsburgh to become an artist in residence at Duquesne University and she studied with Bob Brookmeyer at the University of Pittsburgh. She also entered therapy to deal with her issues. She continued to record until her Concord deal ran out. In 1989, she signed with Justice Records to release what would be her last leadership album, This Is Me. While on tour in Australia in May 1990, she was found dead in a Sydney hotel room. The official cause was heart failure, but at 32, Emily's substantial appetite for heroin and dilaudid (an opioid pain-killer) surely put her heart through the ringer.
Now, whenever I hear Firefly and Take Two, I can't help but think about that night at the West End Bar, her face lit only by a flickering table candle and her eyes baffled by her gift, her failing marriage and figuring out what to do next.
For more on Emily Remler, read Michael J. West's article in JazzTimes last year here. Also, visit All Things Emily here.
Pages. Geoff Page recently published Elegy for Emily: A verse biography of Emily Remler (1957-1990) here. It's written in poem form.
JazzWax tracks: You'll find Emily Remler's Firefly and Take Two here and here.
JazzWax clips: Here's the entire Firefly album...
And here's the entire Take Two album...
Here's Emily in the late 1980s playing Blues for Herb...
Here's Emily playing her original Majestic Dance...
And here's Emily in Australia in April 1990 playing How Insensitive just weeks before her death...