By Con Chapman
Emily Remler took a particularly clear-eyed view of her work. She didn’t want to be judged by a lesser standard because she was a woman in the overwhelmingly male world of jazz.

The death of jazz pianist Geri Allen went largely unnoticed in 2017, a reminder that, however scarce the rewards of a life in jazz may be, the odds of success as anything other than a vocalist in the genre are much longer if you’re a woman. Asked to name a female practitioner of any jazz instrument other than the piano (whose refined pedigree insures that it is always socially acceptable), even avid fans will hesitate and usually come up blank.
Jazz’s history as a lascivious art form may have something to do with it: after all, it was born in Storyville, the red light district of New Orleans, and its practitioners have struggled to shed the image of being the music of the wrong side of the tracks ever since. Bluenoses over the years have railed against both the music in general and instruments on which it is played, particularly the saxophone. The thought of a mother at a suburban bridge club proudly saying “My daughter, the jazz guitarist” accordingly stretches the imagination.
Which made the artistic development of Emily Remler, a jazz guitarist who died of a heart attack in 1990 at the age of 32, that much more remarkable. Remler was born in 1957 (on September 18) in New York, and began playing guitar when she was ten. That chronology would place her squarely in the middle of the mid-60’s flowering of the electric version of that instrument, and she is said to have listened to and absorbed the acid rock style of Jimi Hendrix.
From 1976 to 1979 she attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she began to listen to jazz guitarists including Wes Montgomery, Herb Ellis, Pat Martino, Joe Pass, and Jim Hall. Like some other guitarists who start with rock but have an epiphany when they are first exposed to jazz in large doses, she switched styles. In 1978 she was praised by Ellis as “the new superstar of the jazz guitar” when he introduced her at the Concord Jazz Festival; she had learned her lessons quickly and well.
She moved to New Orleans and by 1981 made her first record as a leader, Firefly. Her anomalous status as a woman in jazz brought her some attention in the man-bites-dog theory of newsworthiness, but she shrugged it off. In 1982 she replied to a question along that line from a People magazine writer, saying “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, like Wes Montgomery.”
She recorded an album with hard-edged guitarist Larry Coryell, Together, but given jazz’s small share of the market for recorded music, she had to play whatever gigs came her way. She was part of the pit band for the Los Angeles version of Sophisticated Ladies from 1981–1982, and toured for several years with samba and bossa nova singer Astrud Gilberto. By 1985 she was at the top of her game, winning Guitarist of the Year in Down Beat’s international poll.
She married Jamaican jazz pianist Monty Alexander in 1981, but the marriage ended in 1984 and, as she put it, after the divorce she “tried to destroy myself as fast as I could.” She began to use heroin and Dilaudid, an opioid medication used to treat moderate to severe pain. Remler became hooked on the high it produces; as described by comedian Rob Delaney in The Atlantic, it feels “utterly wonderful” as it courses through one’s veins. Because Dilaudid is legal, Remler presumably had readier access to it than heroin, either through a prescription of her own or second-hand.
With the exception of Larry Coryell, the male guitarists who Remler admired and imitated weren’t known as heavy users, so it wasn’t a case of hero worship that made her turn to hard drugs. Users of Dilaudid with depression run a high risk for addiction, according to the Prescriber’s Digital Reference, and the drug can cause respiratory distress and death when taken in high doses or in combination with alcohol. In fact, it is approved for use in executions by the state of Ohio.
One suspects — although it went unsaid at the time — that Dilaudid contributed to the heart attack that killed Remler in May of 1990 while she was on tour in Australia. She can be seen on YouTube videos playing on that tour, and she seems happy, even buoyant. She took a particularly clear-eyed view of her work, and didn’t want to be judged by a lesser standard because she was a woman in the overwhelmingly male world of jazz. Asked how she wanted to be remembered, she responded “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 the women’s liberation movement.” Her pain was personal, not political.
Since her death, her image has sometimes been subject to airbrushing. The self-described “nice Jewish girl from New Jersey,” who in fact projected an intense persona when soloing, doesn’t appear on the images that accompany two streaming service compilations of her music (“Jazz at Night’s End” and “Sounds of Winter”), nor even on her own album Larry Coryell & Emily Remler on Apple Music. On the first two there are attractive but prototypically WASPy women, one smoking a cigar seductively; on the last, just white type on a black and green background.
For all the progress that her career represented for women on an instrument that is often psychoanalyzed as a musical mimic of an erect phallus, Remler is still viewed as an artist who has to be gussied up for commercial purposes. The double standard remains in effect. Does anybody try to sell records by putting a toupee on bald Joe Pass?
And however much American entertainment may have advanced from the days when the late Valerie Harper, a non-Jew, played Rhoda Morgenstern, Mary Tyler Moore’s Jewish friend, somebody still thinks it’s a good idea to turn Emily Remler into something she wasn’t.
Con Chapman is the author of Rabbit’s Blues: The Life and Music of Johnny Hodges (Oxford University Press).
Allen Michie says
There’s no telling what kind of monster she would be on the instrument by now if she were still alive. Thanks for helping to keep her memory fresh.
Con Chapman says
I think she might have continued to get stronger, then plateaued/cooled off/mellowed with age. If you compare young to old Count Basie, for example, he was manic at the beginning of his career but by the end he said as much with a minimalist approach that was almost teasing and comical. There are other examples like him.
Thanks for commenting.
EDGAR A GRAY says
It’s so sad that one of the best guitarists, Emily Remler had to die from drugs.
I’ve watched her tuition videos, she had a conversational style.
Through her recordings, I suppose she’ll always be with us, in one form or another.
I hope she’s still playing, in spirit.
MR EDGAR A GRAY says
It appears that she took drugs because she couldn’t tolerate the audience
members not liking her music.
As long-time musician/performer myself, I accept that you can’t please all the people all the time.
Also, people are entitled to their points of view.
I’ve never taken drugs.
Matt Stonehouse says
Always carried Emily’s musical spirit with me. I was so inspired by her playing and instructional video when I was a kid. I’m a percussionist these days clocking up 30 years as a musician and still mention her ideas to students. Such a mature and stylish musician indeed. Sad tale though.
Peter Ugrich says
If you listen again to Emily’s later albums ,there is no doubt she would have been successful writing music for movies. This lady was not only a great jazz guitarist-she was a creative musician as well.
Andy says
I saw Emily play in a duo with a male guitarist whose name I have unfortunately forgotten in a small bar in Manhattan in 1986. It was my first night in NY, indeed my first trip to the USA. I had heard of Emily, but as a UK jazz lover I was amazed to see and hear such brilliant musicians play in such a small venue with such a small audience. Emily was an outstanding talent.
Next night was a Branford Marsalis at the Whippoorwill, but that’s another story.
Martin Tramil says
Unfortunately I start listening to Jazz in 1990, as on my first pro gig, the drummer was a student of Jackie McLean! I just “discovered” Emily yesterday… she’s so amazingly gifted and I also wish she had been with us a bit longer so we could have gotten more of her Love! RIP
Andy says
Bright star burned out way too young. She was a traditionalist for much of musical output in the 80’s, but in a way that complimented her influencers, but was also pointing ahead. Her last few albums seemed to be shifting her into newer territories. I once worried that she might be heading into Smooth Jazz territory but I don’t think that would have satisfied her and she would have kept evolving. Her compositions (Catwalk, Mozambique, Carenia) are so underrated and underplayed, I hope there is a bigger rediscovery of her songs at some point. In addition, she swung as hard as any guitar player past or present, her sense of time is amazing and something all musicians should emulate.
There needs to be a rerelease of all her material. The CD’s and albums are often hard to find, and pricey. Sonically they came out in the early days of digital recording and some of her stellar playing is lessened by the poor sound quality of these records.