Category: Celebrations
Emily The Composer
There’s so much more to the musical legacy Emily Remler left behind than just a jazz guitarist with a heavy Wes Montgomery influence. Emily’s musical tastes were wide and eclectic, as a teenager she studied Indian classical music and found she could memorize and sing whole ragas, she delighted in trying to coax those unorthodox sounds out of her guitar. Emily often credited Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story as a particular inspiration. At the heart of Emily’s writing and playing is a genuine sense of someone communicating their emotions that is often missing in the music of many others.
Here on her birthday we celebrate Emily the composer, with a diverse selection of her own compositions that span her career and ever growing interest in music of all forms.
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This collection includes:
Avant-garde – Antonio from Catwalk (very modern sounding, ‘out-there’, unusual melody and solo)
Modal – Pedals from Catwalk (deep, spiritual and yet playful and light in parts, a musical journey)
Latin – Carenia from This Is Me (complex arrangement, thematic development)
Ballad – Waltz For My Grandfather from Take Two (heartfelt, emotive)
Bebop – The Firefly from Firefly (uptempo bop at its hippest, question and answer lines)
Year 53
September
gives me reason to fall in love all over again with the music of Emily Remler, as we commemorate year 53 on her upcoming birthday of September 18th.
This is the time to dig deeper into her work, to find that song on an early or unpublished album that you haven’t paid attention to in depth and give it a fresh listen, a process which always leaves me reflective of what could have been, who she might have played with by now had she made it this far down the road.
Rem~iniscing
Savor the sounds of the latest recording to surface; Emily playing live at the Coeur d’Alene Jazz Festival from 1988 with good friends and fellow band mates for a number of western and mid-western tours, Kelly Roberti, Brad Edwards and Bob Nell.
- This performance was recorded by Brad Edwards and graciously shared by teacher, composer and double bass extraordinaire, Kelly Roberti. Feel free to visit him @ KellyRoberti.com and offer a personal note of thanks for his generosity for this and other archives he has provided to ATE over the years for the memory of his beloved Emily.
Happy Birthday Emily Remler
How my heart sings when I think of Emily’s music. On her 52nd remembrance enjoy this selection from one of her last tours in the States with close friends and Montana natives, renowned bassist Kelly Roberti and drummer Brad Edwards. Find the entire performance on the Unpublished page.
Cheers to her memory and music today and forever.
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