Emily Remler
Remler in 1984
Background information
Born	(1957-09-18)September 18, 1957 Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, U.S.
Died	May 4, 1990(1990-05-04) (aged 32) Sydney, Australia
Genres	Jazz
Occupation	Musician
Instrument	Guitar
Years active	1976–1990
Labels	Concord Jazz

Emily Remler (September 18, 1957 – May 4, 1990)^[1] was an Americanjazz guitarist, active from the late 1970s until her death in 1990.

Born inEnglewood Cliffs, New Jersey,^[2] Remler began playing guitar at age ten. She listened to pop androck guitarists likeJimi Hendrix andJohnny Winter. At theBerklee College of Music in the 1970s, she listened to jazz guitaristsCharlie Christian,Wes Montgomery,Herb Ellis,Pat Martino, andJoe Pass.

Remler settled inNew Orleans, where she played inblues andjazz clubs, working with bands such as Four Play andLittle Queenie and the Percolators^[3] before beginning her recording career in 1981. She was praised by jazz guitaristHerb Ellis, who referred to her as "the new superstar of guitar" and introduced her at theConcord Jazz Festival in 1978.

In a 1982 interview withPeople magazine, she said: "I may look like a nice Jewish girl from New Jersey, but inside I'm a 50-year-old, heavy-set black man with a big thumb, likeWes Montgomery."

Her first album as a band leader,Firefly, gained positive reviews,^[3] as didTake Two andCatwalk. She recordedTogether with guitaristLarry Coryell. She participated in the Los Angeles version ofSophisticated Ladies from 1981 to 1982 and toured for several years withAstrud Gilberto. She also made two guitar instruction videos.

In 1985, she won Guitarist of the Year inDown Beat magazine's international poll, and performed in that year's guitar festival atCarnegie Hall.^[4] In 1988, she was artist in residence atDuquesne University and the next year received the Distinguished Alumni award from Berklee.Bob Moses, the drummer onTransitions andCatwalk, said, "Emily had that loose, relaxed feel. She swung harder and simpler. She didn't have to let you know that she was a virtuoso in the first five seconds."^[5]

Remler married Jamaican jazz pianistMonty Alexander in 1981; the marriage ended in 1984. Thereafter, she had a brief relationship with Coryell following her first divorce.^[6]

Her first guitar was her brother'sGibson ES-330. She played a Borys^[7] B120 hollow-body electric towards the end of the 1980s. Her acoustic guitars included a 1984 Collectors SeriesOvation and a nylon-string Korocusciclassical guitar that she used forbossa nova.

When asked how she wanted to be remembered she remarked, "Good compositions, memorable guitar playing and my contributions as a woman in music...but the music is everything, and it has nothing to do with politics or thewomen's liberation movement."^[8]

Remler bore the scars of her longstandingopioid use disorder,^[5] which is believed to have contributed to her death.^[9][5] In May, 1990, she died of heart failure at the age of 32 while on tour in Australia.^[2]

Remler is buried in Block 4, Row 2, Grave 18 (Section 2, Field of Ephron) atNew Montefiore Cemetery, New York.^[10]

The albumJust Friends: A Gathering in Tribute to Emily Remler, Volume 1 (Justice Records JR 0502-2) was released in 1990, andVolume 2 (JR 0503-2) followed in 1991. Performers from these two albums included guitaristsHerb Ellis,Leni Stern,Marty Ashby, andSteve Masakowski; bassistsEddie Gómez,Lincoln Goines, andSteve Bailey; drummerMarvin "Smitty" Smith; pianistsBill O'Connell andDavid Benoit; and saxophonistNelson Rangell, among others.

David Benoit wrote the song "6-String Poet", from his albumInner Motion (GRP, 1990), as a tribute to Remler.^[11]

The 1995 bookMadame Jazz: Contemporary Women Instrumentalists byLeslie Gourse includes a posthumous chapter on Remler, based on interviews conducted while she was alive.^[12]

In 2002, West Coast guitaristSkip Heller recorded with his quartet a song called "Emily Remler" in her memory,^[13] released as track No. 5 on his recordHomegoing (Innova Recordings).

Jazz guitaristSheryl Bailey's 2010 albumA New Promise was a tribute to Emily Remler. Aged 18, Bailey first saw Remler perform, at theUniversity of Pittsburgh Jazz Festival in 1984 - she was inspired to take her own guitar studies. Bailey said "She paved the way for me. ... I really wanted to hear Emily's person in me when I played. It meant a lot to me to do this tribute and pay homage to her and to say thank you."^[14] On the album, Bailey collaborated with Pittsburgh's Three Rivers Jazz Orchestra and producerMarty Ashby on eight tracks, including three composed by Remler ("East to Wes", "Mocha Spice", and "Carenia").

• 1990:Bebop and Swing Guitar (VHS, reissued on DVD in 2008)
• 1990:Advanced Jazz and Latin Improvisation (VHS, reissued on DVD in 2008)
• 2005:Sal Salvador, Joe Pass, Mundell Lowe, Charlie Byrd, Emily Remler, Tal Farlow – Learn Jazz Guitar Chords With 6 Great Masters! (DVD, DVD-Video)
• 2005:Emily Remler, Joe Pass, Tuck Andress, Brian Setzer, Joe Beck, Duke Robillard – Learn Jazz Guitar With 6 Great Masters! (DVD, DVD-Video)

• Emily Remler discography atDiscogs
• Emily Remler atFind a Grave
• Emily Remler (in Dutch)
• Emily Remler Guitar Tabs
• Emily Remler: a musical remembrance

• 1957 births
• 1990 deaths
• 20th-century American guitarists
• 20th-century American Jews
• 20th-century American women guitarists
• American jazz guitarists
• Berklee College of Music alumni
• Burials at New Montefiore Cemetery
• Hard bop guitarists
• Jazz fusion guitarists
• Jewish American musicians
• Jewish jazz musicians
• Musicians from Bergen County, New Jersey
• People from Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey
• Women jazz guitarists

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