Emily Remler
Biographie Emily Remler
Emily Remler (1957-1990)
was born on September 18, 1957, in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, and was raised in a suburb of New Jersey. Her first exposure to music was through her brother, who had a Gibson ES-330.In her teenage years, Remler was sent to a boarding school where she immersed herself in rock and folk music. Of her younger self, Remler said, “I was into having parties and being a hippie, a very young hippie”. Her early influences during this period were Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, B.B. King and Johnny Winter.
Upon graduating high school early (at the age of only 16), Remler was accepted into the Berklee College of Music. She was later dismissive of her playing during her school years, noting that one teacher told her that her time was bad. This comment had a profound effect on Remler, and she began obsessively practicing with a metronome.
During her time at Berklee she began a relationship with guitarist Steve Masakowski, and together they would move to New Orleans. Remler flourished in the new environment and began to build her reputation as a force on the instrument. She became friends with Herb Ellis, played with Ray Brown, and was promised a future contract with the Concord Jazz Label.Although her schooling had ended, Remler’s obsessive practice habits persisted. In a later interview she described her approach of purposefully limiting her practice to straight-ahead bebop. Wes Montgomery and Joe Pass were her guitarists of choice, and she absorbed their phrasing and time feel through transcriptions.
After her relationship with Masakowski had ended, Remler set her sights on New York. There, she became a first-call musician, and worked with Nancy Wilson, Astrud Gilberto. She also began her contract with Concord, and throughout 1981-1988 she released 6 records.
However, a string of drug use and a failed marriage threatened to derail her success during this time. After her marriage she admitted, “I tried to destroy myself as fast as I could”.
Her drug problem intensified, and magnified her anxiety about working in a male-dominated field. One musician recalls her being so nervous about recording a solo that she overdubbed it after the fact, without the rest of the band present.
In 1986, Remler gave up the New York life and moved to Pittsburgh where she became and artist-in-residence at the university. She also studied with renowned trombonist and arranger Bob Brookmeyer during this time.
Friends of Remler were optimistic about her rehabilitation and return to form. However, their greatest fears were realized on May 04 1990, when she died of a heart attack at the age of 32 in Sydney, Australia. Her final recording, This Is Me, was released posthumously later that year.
