Emily Remler: Her Artistic Philosophy and Music Julia Lucille Introduction In the early 20th century, Virginia Woolf was in high demand, touring the English universities and presenting her essays to scholars and students. In one such talk, she takes on the burning question ‘Where are all the women writers?’ She explains, When a woman was liable, as she was in the fifteenth century, to be beaten and flung about the room if she did not marry the man of her parents’ choice, the spiritual atmosphere was not favourable to the production of works of art. When she was married without her consent to a man who thereupon became her lord and master…as she was in the time of the Stuarts, it is likely she had little time for writing, and less encouragement. The immense effect of environment and the suggestion upon the mind, we are in our psychoanalytical age are beginning to realize. Again, with memoirs and letters to help us, we are beginning to understand how abnormal is the effort needed to produce a work of art, and what shelter and what support the mind of the artist requires. Of those facts the lives and letters of men like Keats and Carlyle and Flaubert assure us” (45) A century later, not much had changed in the arts when interviewers were asking Emily Remler, ‘Why aren’t there more women jazz guitarists?’ In one interview she replied, I did a job with Barney Kessel in Chicago. And I said to Barney, I said, ‘Do you feel’—we feel the audience all the time—I said ‘Do you feel the audience is hesitating on—if I’m going to be able to play and then they’re relaxing and sitting back and just listening to my music?’ And, and Barney says two words. He says, ‘Nuremberg trials’. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy_NE7iRMpg). Emily Remler was a famous jazz guitarist in the 1980s. Remler is known for her compositions, which are both imitative of previous styles and forward looking. Her repertoire of standards draws on a variety of styles including bossa, bebop, modal, fusion, and blues. She is also known for reharmonizing standards, often in a brooding manner. Her style is passionate but clean. She was heavily influenced by Wes Montgomery, as well as Charlie Christian, Paul Desmond, McCoy Tyner, Bill Evans, Herb Ellis, Joe Pass and Pat Martino. She is also known for speaking candidly about women and music and sharing personal experiences about gender discrimination. Remler recorded six albums as a leader. Firefly, her first album, was recorded in 1981 when Remler was 23 and includes Hank Jones on piano, Bob Maize on bass and Jake Hanna on the drums. Take Two was released in 1982 and features James Williams on piano, Don Thomson on bass and Terry Clarke on drums. Transitions, her third album, was released in 1983 with John D’Earth on trumpet, Eddie Gomez on bass and Bob Moses on drums. This was followed by Catwalk in 1984 with the same lineup as Transitions. East to Wes was released in 1988 with Hank Jones on piano once again, Buster Williams on bass and Marvin Smith on drums. This is Me was released in 1990 and features many different musicians and explorations with electronics. A compilation of her work collected in two albums called Retrospective vol.1 (standards) and vol. 2 (compositions) was released in 1991. Over half of her albums, however, have been discontinued. Take Two, Transitions, Catwalk, and This is Me are almost impossible to find in record stores, and sell online for over one hundred dollars apiece. Only Firefly, East to Wes and Retrospective vol. 1 are still in print. One facet of the Women’s Movement of the 1970s was about documenting the achievements of women subjects who had been neglected in previous history books. It is horrifying to witness the burial of such a recently successful female artist, especially when young female guitar players are searching out for inspiration. To the question, ‘Where are all the female guitarists?’ they will have to once again answer with gaping mouths, when they should not have had to. How would Remler feel about the discontinuation of her albums? Judging by her comments about the music business in general, she would probably shrug and smile. For when asked, “Do you think that business can overshadow the music?” she replied, It can very much. It helps to keep in mind that they can’t make the record without you. You’re just as important as the managers, record promoters and those types of people. The idea I used to have was that, ‘Oh, you’re doing me such a big favor to allow me to play for you.’ But that’s not the way it is. It’s the other way around. Mick Goodrick is my hero with this thing. He’s self-sufficient. He’s fine when he’s practicing in his room. And he never entered the rat race, desperately trying to get publicity, record contract, etc. He just kept playing and working on his music, and now he’s got a great gig with Jack DeJohnette. He just kept doing what he was doing, and people would seek him out” (Taylor 17). Remler’s artistic philosophy expressed in the above excerpt aligns her with the likes of Brenda Ueland, Leo Tolstoy, Vincent Van Gogh and William Blake. Each of these artists believed in the intrinsic value of making art, and thought that seeking public or monetary approval for your art was sacrilegious. In fact, Remler’s above comment closely resembles something Blake said: “I should be sorry if I had any earthly fame, for whatever natural glory a man has is so much detracted from his spiritual glory. I wish to do nothing for profit. I wish to live for art. I am quite happy” (Ueland 12). Remler keeps a close watch on her views, giving as much attention to her state of mind as she makes music as to the music itself. What she came up with was a finely tuned head space that set her up for the most focused and joyous creativity—regardless of her actual surroundings, which were often hostile. This did not come naturally at first and took some serious mental discipline. Within her actual music, Remler maintained the same intense focusing of energy, though she realized that a certain amount of freedom was needed to play her best and so incorporated that balance of work and exploration into her practicing. Realizing that her love for music was enough to push her to her best performance allowed her to relax and have fun, which, in turn, allowed her to explore a higher plane of expression. In this paper I will discuss Remler’s artistic philosophy, focusing on how it helped her to overcome gender discrimination and succeed in a highly competitive musical tradition. Next I will examine the musical skills she considered most important to great playing. These skills include playing for the love of music—nothing more, keeping close time, having an arsenal of melodic embellishment techniques, and playing the most important notes—the guide tones—in your solos. I will look at how these musical focuses can be found in use in her recordings. I will conclude my paper by bringing Remler’s artistic philosophy and her musical focal points together, showing how they interrelate. Biography A brief biography, however, is needed. Emily Remler was born September 18, 1957 in Manhattan, and grew up just across the Hudson in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Her father was a broker, her mother worked in social services, and she had two older siblings, a brother who became a U.S. diplomat and a sister who became a lawyer and language teacher in New York City. Remler grew up playing the piano and drawing. She picked up the guitar at the age of sixteen, playing most rock and folk styles. When Remler graduated from high school at just 16, she contemplated art school but instead chose to study music at Berklee in Boston. Of this decision she remembers, “I did sculpting and drawings and I had a choice to make between Rhodes and Berklee but I was so frustrated with art. I couldn’t get it the way that I wanted it. Music, at least you get more chances and a little more time and the companionship of other musicians” (allthingsemily.com). The summer before beginning college, Remler studied Indian music at the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York. Remler attended Berklee from 1974 to 1976, where she studied jazz guitar with Larry Baione. It was at Berklee that she was first introduced to jazz and blues. About her first time really listening to jazz, Remler recalls, Initially all I heard was a bunch of notes, so I know what it’s like when people hear jazz for the first time. When I first heard Miles and Coltrane, I didn’t like them, they scared me but when I first heard Charlie Christian, the guitarist, with Benny Goodman, and Paul Desmond, the alto saxophonist with Dave Brubeck, I could hear the melody and relate to it. Desmond really got me into jazz, and then when I heard Wes Montgomery and Pat Methany, I was totally taken…I knew I would become a guitarist” (W. Royal Stokes The Jazz Scener: An informal History from New Orleans to 1990). Baione recollects of Remler in Berklee Today “she had a lot of enthusiasm and asked a lot of questions” and that “she was willing to play with anyone so she could learn” (Taylor 16). Of her time at Berklee, Remler recalls “my last year at Berklee, I had a dream to get a gig at a club and play standards all night long. That was it” (Taylor 16). After graduation, Remler resolved to work on her rhythm. In her instructional video Bebop and Swing she recalls, I was 17 years old—or 18 years old, I had graduated from Berklee, and I could play a lot of notes already—I could play pretty good—but I didn’t swing. I had no—I had no knowledge of what the groove—where the groove was and where all the fun was. ‘Cause that’s where the fun is” (Bebop and Swing). To remedy this, Remler spent the summer after she graduated studying in seclusion with her metronome. Come fall she moved to New Orleans, where her boyfriend at the time lived, and began immediately to support herself solely from her music by playing every gig she could and taking up 25 students. She played at both jazz and blues clubs in New Orleans, with bands such as Four Play and Little Queenie and the Percolators. She also kept studying guitar herself, supplemented by frequent jam sessions with Hank Mackie. Her big break, however, came in 1978 when she met Herb Ellis, who recalls of meeting Remler, I was working in New Orleans in 1977, when this young girl, she couldn’t have been twenty, came and asked me for a lesson. I asked her to play something for me, and when she did, I just couldn’t believe what I heard. Forget about ‘girl,’ she’s going to be one of the greatest jazz guitar players who ever lived. She can do anything (allthingsemily.com). Ellis got her a spot at that year’s Concord Jazz Festival (allthingsemily.com). In 1981, the year her first album, Firefly, was released, Remler was hired by a Jamaican Jazz pianist named Monty Alexander. Of Alexander, she recalls, “His articulateness attracted me to his music…Perhaps I’m a true Virgo. I like things very clear” (Gourse 93). They were married and “for two-and-a-half years they traveled, sometimes together, sometimes separately for long stretches” (Gourse 93). “’I’ll meet you in Paris’ was a usual gambit between them” (Gourse 93). But for Remler, “It was hard to be married and on the road” (Gourse 93). That and Remler’s “personal problems and their effect on the marriage overwhelmed the couple’s efforts” (Gourse 93). They were divorced in 1984, though they remained friends (Gourse 93). Remler’s career, however, was going strong, for “by 1981, at the age of twenty-three, her had gone far to establish her self as a versatile free-lancer in New York and was working frequent club dates, often with Brazilian singer Astrud Gilberto” (176). And in 1985, Remler was the guitarist of the year in Downbeat. In 1988 Remler widened her horizons as an artist in residence at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, where she studied sound recording and music technology with Bill Purse and composition with David Stock. In 1989 she received the Berklee Distinguished Alumni Award for “her dedication to the betterment of Jazz and her positive influence on the music industry and on hopeful students” (Taylor 16). Her success, however, was cut short when Remler died from heart failure on May 4, 1990 while on tour in Sydney, Australia. When she died “she was very concerned about developing healthful habits and struggling to leave her dalliance with drugs behind her” (Gourse 92). Her death is rumored to be the result of a heroin overdose. When asked how she wanted to be remembered, she said “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 the politics or the women’s liberation movement” (allaboutjazz.com). When asked to reminisce on her career, Remler remembered of her 20’s, I was introverted because I was young, eager to please and scared. I’ve been through a lot of experiences now. And each year I’ve become more sure that I belong on the stage. And I play with more conviction and no apologies. I love audiences and musicians, so I can relax. I’m very assertive in the studio now. A record’s a product that will show where you’re at. And I have to stand up for what I think will sound good (Gourse 93-94). Yet despite strong comments such as the above, Gourse conjectures that “with all the globe-trotting she began to do in her early twenties, she never had a chance to establish any personal stability” (Gourse 92). Artistic Philosophy Gender Discrimination In Germany in 1986 an unnamed interviewer said to Remler “Jazz in the United States is a very tough business. Now comes the usual question that you’re probably used to: Is it even tougher being a girl?” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy_NE7iRMpg). Remler immediately answers, “Yes” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy_NE7iRMpg). I love her assertiveness here, especially about something as disputed as gender difference. She is sure it is tougher being a girl based on her direct experiences. Her experiences involving gender discrimination range from the very subtle to the heartbreakingly overt, with gray in between. Remler’s subtle experiences with gender discrimination include the quote given in the opening of this paper—about an audience’s mood feeling like the Nuremburg trials. Less subtle gender discrimination that Remler experienced include the “so many band leaders who have told me face to face that they couldn’t hire me because I was a woman” (http://www.allthingsemily.com/biography). Or the time “at the Monterey Jazz Festival in California, she was carrying her guitar on her way to play a concert when she was stopped by a festival employee. He asked whom she was carrying the guitar for, and was prepared to block her way to the stage” (Gourse 84). And the rest is shades of gray, such as the “so many instances where I wasn’t trusted musically and they handled me with kid gloves because they figured my time wasn’t strong” (allthingsemily.com). With external judgments come inward pressures to prove the judgments wrong. But this gets quickly tiring, and if an artist is not careful to put her energy elsewhere, it can become bitterly discouraging. In ‘Fitting the Part’ Ingrid Monson, a female trumpet player and ethnomusicologist, discusses her personal experience with overcoming predetermined judgment based on gender, noting, When I finally had self-confidence about how I was playing, I was no longer upset by these comments. I had come to realize that no matter how well I played, audiences would always react ambivalently—not because of me, but because of the gendered assumptions in our society about what instruments are appropriate for women to play. Some people would love the transgression, and others would be disturbed by it. (Monson 279-80). Remler similarly observes, “And you actually can feel some audiences—do you see what I mean? They might listen: ‘Yes, she made a mistake. Yes, she is weaker. She’s a female. She’s a—you have to be twice as good as a man—do you see what I mean? Because they are waiting for you to make a mistake—sometimes” (allthingsemily.com). Remler and Monson present an interesting problem here. Some audiences may hear you through a filter—a filter made up of their ideas about your gender. If they expect women instrumentalists to make more mistakes, they might zone in on every one they hear, as in Remler’s example, and this may color how they experience the music you’re playing. This is a frustrating situation, but Monson offers some help. She shares her realization about the judgmental audience, saying, These reactions [to a woman instrumentalist] were not personal, but structured by a history and culture that were beyond any individual’s control. This was a very liberating realization. Yes, you can try to undermine gendered or racialized presumptions through excellence, charm, a sense of humor, hard work, and generous acts, but you are not going to be able to stop people from making categorical presumptions based on who you are. This insight, I think, was the great turning point in my life and probably the key to all of my subsequent success. Insulting presumptions are really not very personal (in the sense of being based on your individual acts and deeds), and the secret to having them hurt less is to know that they are not really about ‘you’ but about categories (Monson 279-80). So, according to Monson, you can’t get rid of these judgments—that’s not within your control—but you can reduce them to mere annoyance, thereby mostly eliminating any obstruction of your artistic aims. Royal Stokes shows that Remler had reached a similar conclusion in this excerpt form The Jazz Scene: An Informal History from New Orleans when he writes, Emily was especially annoyed at a prominent critic who had objected (in print) to her habit of intermittently holding the guitar pick in her mouth whenever she switched to bare-finger playing. The critic confessed that he preferred to look away whenever she was doing this, to which Emily testily replied: ‘Good! I wish he’d look away the whole time and picture me as John Coltrane!’ (allthingsemily.com). Comments such as these are not debilitating and will not cause her career to run off the road—they’re just a nuisance. Brenda Ueland discusses criticism like this in her book If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit, saying, I hate [criticism] not so much on my own account, for I have learned at last not to let it balk me. But I hate it because of the potentially shining, gentle, gifted people of all ages that it snuffs out every year. It is a murderer of talent. And because the most modest and sensitive people are the most talented, having the most imagination and sympathy, these are the very first ones that get killed off” (Ueland 8-9). Though outside judgments can be caustic, sometimes we judge ourselves even more harshly. Remler identified this internal criticism as actually detrimental to great playing. Remler touches on this in an interview with Berklee Today, Berklee’s alumni magazine when she is asked, “You have said before that you try to ‘get rid of the jury in your head.’ What does that do for you?” and responds, Every time I can do it, which is maybe 75 percent of the time now, it’s great. I have better timing, and I sound so much better. It would be different if the condemning jury worked. If you played a few bars and the jury said, "You stink, you’re terrible," and that egged you on to play better, that would be great. But it doesn’t, it makes you play worse. So if you can get those judgments out of your mind, you can be freer and play much better. And if you’re going to play bebop, you don’t have time for all that thinking (Taylor 17). But does she block out everything? No. Just that which she finds hostile. She stays open to the audience, as is shown when she’s asked by Berklee Today, “When you go onstage or into a studio, are you there to please the audience ore to please yourself?” (Taylor 17). Remler responds, “It’s really both. What I like to do the best is lose myself—to get my head out of the way. I try to be some kind of channel. But I try to get the thinking out of the way” (Taylor 17). In this way Remler transcends her category as a woman and is able to play her best from a place where categories lose their meaning. Competition and Proving Yourself When asked that question of questions, “Why are…female instrumentalists still the exception? Do you…do you have a reason—is there a reason for this?” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy_NE7iRMpg). Remler replies, Uh, the thing that I can think of is there’s a lot of intimidation, you know, when you get, when you get up on stage. And in the early years when I just started playing and wasn’t very good, uh, it was very intimidating. You know, uh, there were times in New York City where you put your name on a list to be able to sit in with a jam session and they wouldn’t call my name, ‘cause they thought I would play folk music, like, you know, uh, Joan Baez, you know or something. So that intimidation made me discouraged—may discourage some women form keeping pushing. But, um, I wanted to express myself so much that I didn’t see anything but ‘Me,’ you know, that I wanted to play great (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy_NE7iRMpg). This experience shows that sometimes you’re not even given the chance to prove yourself before you are shut down. Intimidation and competition are historical features of jazz, especially at jam sessions. It is assumed that discouraging fledgling players will make them come back a second time with more fire. For Remler, however, “The music is going to suffer if the motivation is to compete with others, and if I’m only playing to get people’s approval” (allthingsemily.com). Remler replaces this false motivation with an “original motivation” to “play great and feel good” (Taylor 17). Part of why the approval of others is a poor basis for musical choices is that that approval might be elusive at times. Remler remembers of her years at Berklee “I just wanted to be accepted as a jazz guitarist. But that can drive you crazy. Because you never do get the approval—at least not completely” (Taylor 17). Remler elaborates, “You can get the approval of your peers and one guy will say you can’t play and you’re shattered” (Taylor 17). Through her experiences playing in groups, Remler saw that depending on the approval of others to bolster her own sense of musical worth was not necessary and at times impossible. Remler elaborates on this in Berklee Today when she’s asked, “Did you feel that way at first [as if you had to prove yourself]?” and responds, Tremendously so. Especially when I was at school. It’s just natural that when kids are at school that they’re going to be competitive. Plus the fact that I was a girl. So I got this ‘I’m gonna show these guys’ attitude—which wasn’t conducive to creative playing. (Taylor 17). But how does one reject something as ubiquitous as competition in jazz environments if this competition slows you down and stops your creativity short? Instead of physically avoiding it—which might mean the end of pursuing jazz as a player—Remler explains, “I consciously tried to put that type of feeling [of competition] out of my mind. By the time I got to be about 21 years old, that feeling was gone” (Taylor 17). Working to change the way you think takes intense, long-term focus. Remler uses subtle mental discipline to filter the kinds of experiences she has while playing jazz, thereby enabling her career to continue and thrive. Remler’s Boot Camp Just Playing In her instructional video Bebop and Swing Guitar, Remler discusses how she practices and what skills she thinks are most critical to hone great playing. Her methods are surprisingly simple. She says, Basically the way I learned to play was by making rhythm tapes and jamming along with them…When I make a record I make rhythm tapes of every single song, with the metronome so I can still check that I’m ok, that I’m right. And I lay down rhythms tracks—about five minutes per tune—and I jam over it. And if I can’t do a particular lick, I stop the tape recorder, do the lick 15, 20 times and then I resume playing over it until I’m comfortable. That’s the way I practice. It’s very uncomplicated (Bebop). When asked by Berklee Today “Do you get the same joy from music today as you did back then [when attending Berklee], or do you take a different angle now?” (Taylor 16). Remler replies, “I have to work very hard that it’s not a different angle. It can turn into your livelihood, and your business. You can lose a lot of that innocent, pure motivation to be a great musician” (Taylor 16). The above practicing style seems like a good way to maintain pure motivation while you play. Brenda Ueland, in If You Want to Write, echoes Remler’s emphasis on simple practicing methods, recalling, Before, I had thought that to produce a work of painting or literature, you scowled and you thought long and ponderously and weighted everything solemnly and learned everything that all artists had ever done aforetime, and what their influences and schools were, and you were extremely careful about design and balance and getting interesting planes into your painting, and avoided, with the most stringent severity, showing the faintest academical tendency, and were strictly modern. And so on and so on. But the moment I read Van Gogh’s letter I knew what art was, and the creative impulse. It is a feeling of love and enthusiasm for something, and in a direct, simple, passionate and true way, you try to show the beauty in things to others, by drawing it” (Ueland 19). Ueland’s realizations about the best environments for thriving creativity align closely with Remler’s practicing methods, which allow her room for free exploration while keeping her grounded. The exercises that she stops and drills into her fingers are ones she recently came up with, further developing her ability to play what she hears. So first on Remler’s list of important skills is a relaxed practice style, guided by inspiration and the desire to play well—nothing more. The Metronome In her Bebop video Remler plugs the importance of rhythm constantly, emphasizing “Rhythm is the most important thing. It must swing. Now, you can play a million notes and you can play a million chords but unless it’s in the groove and unless it feels good it’s not gonna make it. So you have to learn how to swing properly” (Bebop). How do you achieve this? Remler says, “I teach my students to play along with the metronome so they can get as close to perfection as they can” (Bebop). More specifically, by placing the metronome on beats two and four to simulate the beats where the high hat comes together, Remler creates a timeline for checking whether her time is dragging or rushing. Remler gives several analogies for feeling swing. In one she suggests, “What you have to do is really feel the beat just as if it was an electrocardiogram…You wanna be on the crest of the wave” (Bebop). Locking into the pulse of each beat can be meditative and, as Remler says, fun. Keeping your focus on the beat can be a ground base of concentration, laying the foundation for more complex rhythmic exploration. Songs that exemplify this relaxed, in-the-pocket playing include ‘Del Sasser’ off of Transitions. In the original Cannonball Adderley version, the melody is doubled on alto saxophone and cornet. This is answered by a figure doubled by the bass, piano and accented by the drums. Remler’s arrangement plays with this original arrangement. In her version the melody is doubled by trumpet and guitar and the lower, chromatic figure is doubled on the bass and the guitar. Even more so than in the Adderley version, in Remler’s ‘Del Sasser’ these doublings are backed by almost completely by silence, so the timing of the phrases and the cohesion of the corresponding players is critical. Arranging difficult figures in an exposed setting shows Remler’s confidence in her timing and her view of it as an arena for exploration. In ‘Searchin’,’ a little-known, down tempo Duke Ellington piece, Remler’s in-the-pocket playing is also exposed, though in a different fashion. Here the space isn’t in instrumental density but in time. Because the piece is down-tempo, there is more space for rhythmic vagaries, so you have to be all the more attentive to the imaginary metronome. Here Remler’s playing is laid back, meaning that her placement of the swung eighth note is closer to a sixteenth note than a triplet. In this style of playing the first eighth note is carefully placed on each quarter-note pulse, but the second, swung eighth note is placed just before the next pulse, giving the song a lazy, but controlled feel. It’s as relaxed as it could be, while still being in time. Developing a good ear for rhythmic nuance allows Remler to explore more complicated rhythmic figures. For example, fast, syncopated rhythms are featured commonly in her later compositions, such as ‘Nunca Mais,’ ‘Transitions,’ and ‘Catwalk.’ ‘Nunca Mais,’ according to Remler in her liner notes, means nevermore in Portuguese. Remler says, “This is my tribute to all the authentic Brazilian music I’ve learned about from the musicians in Astrud Gilberto’s band” (Leonard Feather). Remler begins ‘Nunca Mais’ with a fast-paced, syncopated vamp that reappears throughout the piece. Her comping throughout the body of the piece is lively and uplifting, making much use of broken time. Though her playing is fast and furious now, compared to the earlier, calmer examples, each beat, whether distinctly played or playfully avoided, is still carefully observed. Melodic Embellishment The guitar is an extremely versatile instrument. When playing melodies or melodic solos, techniques such as chord-melody can bolster the sound and give the guitarist more expressional control. Chord-melody is playing the melody in the highest note of every chord so that you are accompanying yourself. This enables you to play songs alone in a comprehensive way, or, within an ensemble, to bolster your sound within a group. Remler uses chord-melody in the opening of ‘In a Sentimental Mood’ off of Firefly to back her take on the melody, adding several reharmonizations within each original chord change. Her use of chord–melody here gives her full reign over the harmonic nature of the piece, which is handy when she has something so specific in mind. She plays the chords sometimes with the melody as one voice and other times in between it as two. To further bolster a melody, the spaces in between phrases or in the pauses within phrases can give the piece more momentum and reinforce the expression of the passing harmonies. Remler’s term for these fills is an ‘answer.’ In her Bebop video, Remler notes that Wes Montgomery also makes use of this technique, saying, “A lot of Wes Montgomery’s music is question and answer form” (Bebop). She shows what she means with an example, “Here’s my question…” “…and here’s my answer…” “…where there’s room to put the chords. I played the melody, and I answered myself with the chords and I’m a totally independent musician here.” (Bebop). This melodic embellishment can be found in Remler’s ‘Blues for Herb’ found on East to West as well as in ‘Firefly’ off of Firefly. In each she plays the melody and answers it with two syncopated chords in the space between phrases. Filling out your playing with these techniques arms you with ways to have a full sound. These options, in turn, give you more independence as a musician, whether you’re literally alone, or are playing within a group. Remler sees this as necessary for good musicianship, stressing, “You should be able to be totally self-sufficient without the band behind you” (Bebop). You should be able to play the song “all the way through in exact time by yourself. And let me hear you take a solo and let me hear the chord changes behind it” (Bebop). The use of chord-melody and chord fills clarify that you know exactly what chords you’re playing over in a way that you could side-step in their absence. In solos this harmonic assurance can also be expressed—by using the guide tones. The Guide Tones—An Important Tool for Improvisation An important skill for holding your own is knowing the notes that are most important to the passing chords. Remler calls these notes guide tones, and explains, “The guide tones are the most important notes of the chords—they’re the third or the seventh of the chord” (bebop). Remler explains that guide tones are “essentially the meat of the chord. Not the root, not the fifth, ‘cause that’s not gonna tell you whether the chord is major of minor” (Bebop). Guide tone sequences are guide tones from each passing chord strung together to form a guideline for improvisation. The guide tone sequences that are the easiest to hear are chromatic ones, as in the following example. Because the guide tones are the third or the seventh of the chord, the above chords allow for several choices of guide tone sequences. From DMaj7 to Dm7 you could focus on the major third (F#) moving down to a minor third (F), or the major seventh (C#) moving down to a minor seventh (C). In going from Dm7 to CMaj7, many notes move—even the root does—but we are only concerned with thirds and sevenths. So we could hear the third of Dm7 (F) moving down to the third of CMaj7 (E) or we could hear the seventh of Dm7 (C) moving down the seventh of CMaj7 (B). Because of the particular voicings of these chords, your ear will probably hear the F#-F-E-Eb sequence most prominently as those are the highest notes of each chord. So if you were to take a solo based on these chord changes you could build phrases around F# in the first measure, E in the second, etc. This technique allows you to get more quickly to the meat of the harmonic changes. It also saves you from using your ear to avoid the key changes, especially when the difference is only one sharp or flat. But guide tones don’t always move in semitones. In Remler’s solo on ‘Look to the Sky’ off of Firefly, we can see how she uses guide tones while taking a solo. As you can see, the first note in her solo is a guide tone, the third of EbMaj7 (G). Focusing a phrase on the third or the seventh of a chord is effective in that it tells the listener the most important information about that chord, therefore outlining the chord progression clearly. The highest note of the phrase is the seventh (D). Opening with the third and peaking with the seventh clearly tells the listener that we’re in Eb Major. We’re still in EMaj7 at the start of this phrase, and Remler begins it as she began the last one, with the third, but this time she passes through the seventh and lands prematurely on the next chord’s third (Eb-7’s Gb). The phrase then falls, hitting Db, Eb-7’s seventh, twice. None of the guide tones in this phrase are on strong beats, making their usage subtle to the ear. This is not always the case, however, as in the following sequence. Here the guide tones feature frame each measure, beginning and ending them. The sequence opens with an F, the seventh of G-7. Beat two begins with Bb, the third. Then on the and of three and four we hit B and F again. At the start of the next measure, we begin on E (the third of C7b9), and the measure ends on Bb ( the seventh). Overall in this particular chord change, we would hear the F (on beat one of measure one) moving down to the E (of beat one of measure 2) most prominently. This is because of how the guide tones were placed—on strong beats and in corresponding places—both on beat one. Overall, each chord change features a certain guide tone movement. In Remler’s words, to hear the guide tones, “Try hearing the chords and making melodies to emphasize what’s happening between those changes. Now every song in this world has a guide tone line”…which is “the smoothest possible connecting line through a set of chords” choosing from either the third or the seventh of that chord (bebop). Here is Remler’s entire solo for the A section of the ‘Look to the Sky’ followed by the corresponding guide tone movements featured in that solo. Guide tone movements: These guide tones provide an inner melody within the solo that gives it an overall direction and focus. Using these essential notes helps immensely in playing solo guitar as well. Remler explains, “So when you’re taking an improvisational solo over it, the way to make that change—‘make that change,’ in other words, uh, without relying on anybody to play the chords behind you, you have to play those notes, play that situation.” (Bebop). Conclusion In the world of jazz, most of the role models you have to choose from are male. As a guitarist, as far as emulation goes, I’ve got Joe Pass and John Scofield and the like—mostly very manly men—often with large mustaches—shredding, staying in the pocket (as a local player leading a workshop once explained “What’s near your pocket? Your balls. So playing in the pocket really means rocking your balls off”). It’s hard for me to feel motivated about showing that last guy up, taking that fifth chorus by force, or learning to wail. Often I ask myself—where am I? Am I lost? Did I stumble into the little boys club? Do I even want to be in a little boys club? Emily Remler is my favorite guitarist and such an inspiration to me. Is it because she is the most famous female jazz guitarist to date? That’s absolutely part of it. One of the most intimate and shaping parts of playing jazz is emulating other musicians that inspire you. I remember buying my first Emily Remler CD and just staring at the cover in the record store. A young looking woman with long dark hair turning her head away with her hand draped over her beautiful cherry red guitar—a woman holding a guitar! Just the picture was so inspiring. I find it hard to emulate people of the opposite sex sometimes, and I think that that may be due to their philosophies often clashing with mine. When men talk about jazz in terms of competition with one another I feel like their speaking some other language that doesn’t include my definition of success. When people talk about shredding and playing aggressively, I feel like that is something I could try on, but not something I want to inhabit. So when I found Emily Remler, she was finally someone I could emulate. A model—both because I loved her sound but also because her life story was a road map for how to play guitar in a man’s world and survive. Everything about her I could relate to. And that was a key component missing from my access to jazz. I needed a player who inspired me musically and philosophically, but also who I could literally see myself in. I value her transparency regarding her (sometimes very personal) views and thought processes regarding women and music, her verbalization of often unspoken and therefore (to some) unrecognized challenges faced by women playing jazz, and her willingness to share what worked for her through the surprisingly user-friendly nature of her subtle, intuitive observations. Both in her artistic philosophy and music, Remler’s thinking is clear. It is rare to have a jazz artist be so unveiled about their methods as a musician. It’s common for jazz musicians to foster larger than life, mysterious accounts of themselves—devoid of stories from the days when they were unknown. It’s also unusual for a musician to give out so much of their own musical strategies, as if to reveal these will end the whole charade. Remler’s tell-all accounts are refreshing in this arena, making what she learned accessible to all that seek her out, and ensuring that in many ways her legacy continues in terms of education as well as inspiration—even if many of her albums don’t. Sadly I think most of her comments about sexism made in the 80s still could be said today. Today we may have rid ourselves of blatantly overt sexism in the jazz world, but the subtler versions of sexism linger. This makes it as difficult for women today to discuss sexism, as it is easy for men to overlook sexism or deny it as a figment of a woman’s emotionally creative imagination. As Remler’s career shows, sexual discrimination can be incredibly discouraging, but as her story also shows, women can hold valuable places in the world of jazz instrumentalists. I think the lesson here is one of incredible balance. Being sensitive is a profound gift, but to let it thrive you have to grow thick skin—especially if you’re a woman—but only thick to certain things! So you might say, ‘Remarks about my gender I won’t let through to me. I won’t let it touch me. But this wonderful scene, or subtle feeling—I will let those things in.’ So you are letting in the good—all that inspires and fuels you, and keeping out the bad—anything that discourages or douses your fire. And this takes constant evaluation and attention to subtle feelings inside yourself—to constantly ask, ‘Is this good for my creativity or bad?’ It is interesting to see how closely Remler monitors her thoughts and feelings and their relatedness to her playing. Honing in on the subtleties of the mind onstage allowed her to protect herself against encroaching, harmful attitudes, carving a path beyond trivial gender-based judgments, the negative feelings of competition and having to prove yourself, towards a higher musical plane. Bibliography Allthingsemily.com: Remembering the life and music of jazz guitar legend Emily Remler. WordPress, 2006. Web. “Emily Remler: Biography.” Allaboutjazz.com. 21 May, 2008. Web. Feather, Leonard. liner notes for Transitions. 1984 Concord Jazz, INC. Gourse, Leslie. Madam Jazz: Contemporary Women Instrumentalists. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Print. Monson, Ingrid. “Fitting the Part.” Big Ears: Listening for Gender in Jazz Studies. Ed. Nichole T. Rustin and Sherrie Tucker. Durham: Duke University Press, 2008. Print. Remler, Emily. Emily Remler-Interviewed in 1986. YouTube. newzappa, 03 oct. 2008. Web. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?y=iy_NE7iRMpg>. Remler, Emily. Bebop and Swing Guitar. Hot Licks. Music Sales Corporation: New York, 2008. Remler, Emily. Firefly. Concord Jazz, 1981. CD. Remler, Emily. East to Wes. Concord Jazz, 1988. CD. Remler, Emily. Catwalk. Concord Jazz, 1985. CD. Remler, Emily. Transitions. Concord Jazz, 1984. CD. Stokes, Royal W. The Jazz Scene: An Informal History form New Orleans to 1990. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Print. Taylor, Andrew. “First Impressions: Emily Remler talks about music and the struggle of substance over image.” Berklee Today Fall 1989. Ueland, Brenda. If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence, and Spirit. Saint Paul: Graywolf, 1987. Print. Woolf, Virginia. On Women and Writing. London: Women’s Press, 2001. Print.

Emily Remler: Her Artistic Philosophy and Music

Julia Lucille

Introduction

In the early 20th century, Virginia Woolf was in high demand, touring the English universities and presenting her essays to scholars and students. In one such talk, she takes on the burning question ‘Where are all the women writers?’ She explains,

When a woman was liable, as she was in the fifteenth century, to be beaten and flung about the room if she did not marry the man of her parents’ choice, the spiritual atmosphere was not favourable to the production of works of art. When she was married without her consent to a man who thereupon became her lord and master…as she was in the time of the Stuarts, it is likely she had little time for writing, and less encouragement. The immense effect of environment and the suggestion upon the mind, we are in our psychoanalytical age are beginning to realize. Again, with memoirs and letters to help us, we are beginning to understand how abnormal is the effort needed to produce a work of art, and what shelter and what support the mind of the artist requires. Of those facts the lives and letters of men like Keats and Carlyle and Flaubert assure us” (45)

A century later, not much had changed in the arts when interviewers were asking Emily Remler, ‘Why aren’t there more women jazz guitarists?’ In one interview she replied,

I did a job with Barney Kessel in Chicago. And I said to Barney, I said, ‘Do you feel’—we feel the audience all the time—I said ‘Do you feel the audience is hesitating on—if I’m going to be able to play and then they’re relaxing and sitting back and just listening to my music?’ And, and Barney says two words. He says, ‘Nuremberg trials’. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy_NE7iRMpg).

Emily Remler was a famous jazz guitarist in the 1980s. Remler is known for her compositions, which are both imitative of previous styles and forward looking. Her repertoire of standards draws on a variety of styles including bossa, bebop, modal, fusion, and blues. She is also known for reharmonizing standards, often in a brooding manner. Her style is passionate but clean. She was heavily influenced by Wes Montgomery, as well as Charlie Christian, Paul Desmond, McCoy Tyner, Bill Evans, Herb Ellis, Joe Pass and Pat Martino. She is also known for speaking candidly about women and music and sharing personal experiences about gender discrimination.

Remler recorded six albums as a leader. Firefly, her first album, was recorded in 1981 when Remler was 23 and includes Hank Jones on piano, Bob Maize on bass and Jake Hanna on the drums. Take Two was released in 1982 and features James Williams on piano, Don Thomson on bass and Terry Clarke on drums. Transitions, her third album, was released in 1983 with John D’Earth on trumpet, Eddie Gomez on bass and Bob Moses on drums. This was followed by Catwalk in 1984 with the same lineup as Transitions. East to Wes was released in 1988 with Hank Jones on piano once again, Buster Williams on bass and Marvin Smith on drums. This is Me was released in 1990 and features many different musicians and explorations with electronics. A compilation of her work collected in two albums called Retrospective vol.1 (standards) and vol. 2 (compositions) was released in 1991. Over half of her albums, however, have been discontinued. Take Two, Transitions, Catwalk, and This is Me are almost impossible to find in record stores, and sell online for over one hundred dollars apiece. Only Firefly, East to Wes and Retrospective vol. 1 are still in print.

One facet of the Women’s Movement of the 1970s was about documenting the achievements of women subjects who had been neglected in previous history books. It is horrifying to witness the burial of such a recently successful female artist, especially when young female guitar players are searching out for inspiration. To the question, ‘Where are all the female guitarists?’ they will have to once again answer with gaping mouths, when they should not have had to. How would Remler feel about the discontinuation of her albums? Judging by her comments about the music business in general, she would probably shrug and smile. For when asked, “Do you think that business can overshadow the music?” she replied,

It can very much. It helps to keep in mind that they can’t make the record without you. You’re just as important as the managers, record promoters and those types of people. The idea I used to have was that, ‘Oh, you’re doing me such a big favor to allow me to play for you.’ But that’s not the way it is. It’s the other way around. Mick Goodrick is my hero with this thing. He’s self-sufficient. He’s fine when he’s practicing in his room. And he never entered the rat race, desperately trying to get publicity, record contract, etc. He just kept playing and working on his music, and now he’s got a great gig with Jack DeJohnette. He just kept doing what he was doing, and people would seek him out” (Taylor 17).

Remler’s artistic philosophy expressed in the above excerpt aligns her with the likes of Brenda Ueland, Leo Tolstoy, Vincent Van Gogh and William Blake. Each of these artists believed in the intrinsic value of making art, and thought that seeking public or monetary approval for your art was sacrilegious. In fact, Remler’s above comment closely resembles something Blake said: “I should be sorry if I had any earthly fame, for whatever natural glory a man has is so much detracted from his spiritual glory. I wish to do nothing for profit. I wish to live for art. I am quite happy” (Ueland 12). Remler keeps a close watch on her views, giving as much attention to her state of mind as she makes music as to the music itself. What she came up with was a finely tuned head space that set her up for the most focused and joyous creativity—regardless of her actual surroundings, which were often hostile. This did not come naturally at first and took some serious mental discipline.

Within her actual music, Remler maintained the same intense focusing of energy, though she realized that a certain amount of freedom was needed to play her best and so incorporated that balance of work and exploration into her practicing. Realizing that her love for music was enough to push her to her best performance allowed her to relax and have fun, which, in turn, allowed her to explore a higher plane of expression.

In this paper I will discuss Remler’s artistic philosophy, focusing on how it helped her to overcome gender discrimination and succeed in a highly competitive musical tradition. Next I will examine the musical skills she considered most important to great playing. These skills include playing for the love of music—nothing more, keeping close time, having an arsenal of melodic embellishment techniques, and playing the most important notes—the guide tones—in your solos. I will look at how these musical focuses can be found in use in her recordings. I will conclude my paper by bringing Remler’s artistic philosophy and her musical focal points together, showing how they interrelate.

Biography

A brief biography, however, is needed. Emily Remler was born September 18, 1957 in Manhattan, and grew up just across the Hudson in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Her father was a broker, her mother worked in social services, and she had two older siblings, a brother who became a U.S. diplomat and a sister who became a lawyer and language teacher in New York City. Remler grew up playing the piano and drawing. She picked up the guitar at the age of sixteen, playing most rock and folk styles. When Remler graduated from high school at just 16, she contemplated art school but instead chose to study music at Berklee in Boston. Of this decision she remembers, “I did sculpting and drawings and I had a choice to make between Rhodes and Berklee but I was so frustrated with art. I couldn’t get it the way that I wanted it. Music, at least you get more chances and a little more time and the companionship of other musicians” (allthingsemily.com). The summer before beginning college, Remler studied Indian music at the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York.

Remler attended Berklee from 1974 to 1976, where she studied jazz guitar with Larry Baione. It was at Berklee that she was first introduced to jazz and blues. About her first time really listening to jazz, Remler recalls,

Initially all I heard was a bunch of notes, so I know what it’s like when people hear jazz for the first time. When I first heard Miles and Coltrane, I didn’t like them, they scared me but when I first heard Charlie Christian, the guitarist, with Benny Goodman, and Paul Desmond, the alto saxophonist with Dave Brubeck, I could hear the melody and relate to it. Desmond really got me into jazz, and then when I heard Wes Montgomery and Pat Methany, I was totally taken…I knew I would become a guitarist” (W. Royal Stokes The Jazz Scener: An informal History from New Orleans to 1990).

Baione recollects of Remler in Berklee Today “she had a lot of enthusiasm and asked a lot of questions” and that “she was willing to play with anyone so she could learn” (Taylor 16). Of her time at Berklee, Remler recalls “my last year at Berklee, I had a dream to get a gig at a club and play standards all night long. That was it” (Taylor 16).

After graduation, Remler resolved to work on her rhythm. In her instructional video Bebop and Swing she recalls,

I was 17 years old—or 18 years old, I had graduated from Berklee, and I could play a lot of notes already—I could play pretty good—but I didn’t swing. I had no—I had no knowledge of what the groove—where the groove was and where all the fun was. ‘Cause that’s where the fun is” (Bebop and Swing).

To remedy this, Remler spent the summer after she graduated studying in seclusion with her metronome.

Come fall she moved to New Orleans, where her boyfriend at the time lived, and began immediately to support herself solely from her music by playing every gig she could and taking up 25 students. She played at both jazz and blues clubs in New Orleans, with bands such as Four Play and Little Queenie and the Percolators. She also kept studying guitar herself, supplemented by frequent jam sessions with Hank Mackie. Her big break, however, came in 1978 when she met Herb Ellis, who recalls of meeting Remler,

I was working in New Orleans in 1977, when this young girl, she couldn’t have been twenty, came and asked me for a lesson. I asked her to play something for me, and when she did, I just couldn’t believe what I heard. Forget about ‘girl,’ she’s going to be one of the greatest jazz guitar players who ever lived. She can do anything (allthingsemily.com).

Ellis got her a spot at that year’s Concord Jazz Festival (allthingsemily.com).

In 1981, the year her first album, Firefly, was released, Remler was hired by a Jamaican Jazz pianist named Monty Alexander. Of Alexander, she recalls, “His articulateness attracted me to his music…Perhaps I’m a true Virgo. I like things very clear” (Gourse 93). They were married and “for two-and-a-half years they traveled, sometimes together, sometimes separately for long stretches” (Gourse 93). “’I’ll meet you in Paris’ was a usual gambit between them” (Gourse 93). But for Remler, “It was hard to be married and on the road” (Gourse 93). That and Remler’s “personal problems and their effect on the marriage overwhelmed the couple’s efforts” (Gourse 93). They were divorced in 1984, though they remained friends (Gourse 93).

Remler’s career, however, was going strong, for “by 1981, at the age of twenty-three, her had gone far to establish her self as a versatile free-lancer in New York and was working frequent club dates, often with Brazilian singer Astrud Gilberto” (176). And in 1985, Remler was the guitarist of the year in Downbeat. In 1988 Remler widened her horizons as an artist in residence at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, where she studied sound recording and music technology with Bill Purse and composition with David Stock. In 1989 she received the Berklee Distinguished Alumni Award for “her dedication to the betterment of Jazz and her positive influence on the music industry and on hopeful students” (Taylor 16). Her success, however, was cut short when Remler died from heart failure on May 4, 1990 while on tour in Sydney, Australia. When she died “she was very concerned about developing healthful habits and struggling to leave her dalliance with drugs behind her” (Gourse 92). Her death is rumored to be the result of a heroin overdose.

When asked how she wanted to be remembered, she said “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 the politics or the women’s liberation movement” (allaboutjazz.com). When asked to reminisce on her career, Remler remembered of her 20’s,

I was introverted because I was young, eager to please and scared. I’ve been through a lot of experiences now. And each year I’ve become more sure that I belong on the stage. And I play with more conviction and no apologies. I love audiences and musicians, so I can relax. I’m very assertive in the studio now. A record’s a product that will show where you’re at. And I have to stand up for what I think will sound good (Gourse 93-94).

Yet despite strong comments such as the above, Gourse conjectures that “with all the globe-trotting she began to do in her early twenties, she never had a chance to establish any personal stability” (Gourse 92).

Artistic Philosophy

Gender Discrimination

In Germany in 1986 an unnamed interviewer said to Remler “Jazz in the United States is a very tough business. Now comes the usual question that you’re probably used to: Is it even tougher being a girl?” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy_NE7iRMpg). Remler immediately answers, “Yes” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy_NE7iRMpg). I love her assertiveness here, especially about something as disputed as gender difference. She is sure it is tougher being a girl based on her direct experiences.

Her experiences involving gender discrimination range from the very subtle to the heartbreakingly overt, with gray in between. Remler’s subtle experiences with gender discrimination include the quote given in the opening of this paper—about an audience’s mood feeling like the Nuremburg trials. Less subtle gender discrimination that Remler experienced include the “so many band leaders who have told me face to face that they couldn’t hire me because I was a woman” (http://www.allthingsemily.com/biography). Or the time “at the Monterey Jazz Festival in California, she was carrying her guitar on her way to play a concert when she was stopped by a festival employee. He asked whom she was carrying the guitar for, and was prepared to block her way to the stage” (Gourse 84). And the rest is shades of gray, such as the “so many instances where I wasn’t trusted musically and they handled me with kid gloves because they figured my time wasn’t strong” (allthingsemily.com).

With external judgments come inward pressures to prove the judgments wrong. But this gets quickly tiring, and if an artist is not careful to put her energy elsewhere, it can become bitterly discouraging. In ‘Fitting the Part’ Ingrid Monson, a female trumpet player and ethnomusicologist, discusses her personal experience with overcoming predetermined judgment based on gender, noting,

When I finally had self-confidence about how I was playing, I was no longer upset by these comments. I had come to realize that no matter how well I played, audiences would always react ambivalently—not because of me, but because of the gendered assumptions in our society about what instruments are appropriate for women to play. Some people would love the transgression, and others would be disturbed by it. (Monson 279-80).

Remler similarly observes, “And you actually can feel some audiences—do you see what I mean? They might listen: ‘Yes, she made a mistake. Yes, she is weaker. She’s a female. She’s a—you have to be twice as good as a man—do you see what I mean? Because they are waiting for you to make a mistake—sometimes” (allthingsemily.com).

Remler and Monson present an interesting problem here. Some audiences may hear you through a filter—a filter made up of their ideas about your gender. If they expect women instrumentalists to make more mistakes, they might zone in on every one they hear, as in Remler’s example, and this may color how they experience the music you’re playing. This is a frustrating situation, but Monson offers some help. She shares her realization about the judgmental audience, saying,

These reactions [to a woman instrumentalist] were not personal, but structured by a history and culture that were beyond any individual’s control. This was a very liberating realization. Yes, you can try to undermine gendered or racialized presumptions through excellence, charm, a sense of humor, hard work, and generous acts, but you are not going to be able to stop people from making categorical presumptions based on who you are. This insight, I think, was the great turning point in my life and probably the key to all of my subsequent success. Insulting presumptions are really not very personal (in the sense of being based on your individual acts and deeds), and the secret to having them hurt less is to know that they are not really about ‘you’ but about categories (Monson 279-80).

So, according to Monson, you can’t get rid of these judgments—that’s not within your control—but you can reduce them to mere annoyance, thereby mostly eliminating any obstruction of your artistic aims.

Royal Stokes shows that Remler had reached a similar conclusion in this excerpt form The Jazz Scene: An Informal History from New Orleans when he writes,

Emily was especially annoyed at a prominent critic who had objected (in print) to her habit of intermittently holding the guitar pick in her mouth whenever she switched to bare-finger playing. The critic confessed that he preferred to look away whenever she was doing this, to which Emily testily replied: ‘Good! I wish he’d look away the whole time and picture me as John Coltrane!’ (allthingsemily.com).

Comments such as these are not debilitating and will not cause her career to run off the road—they’re just a nuisance. Brenda Ueland discusses criticism like this in her book If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit, saying,

I hate [criticism] not so much on my own account, for I have learned at last not to let it balk me. But I hate it because of the potentially shining, gentle, gifted people of all ages that it snuffs out every year. It is a murderer of talent. And because the most modest and sensitive people are the most talented, having the most imagination and sympathy, these are the very first ones that get killed off” (Ueland 8-9).

Though outside judgments can be caustic, sometimes we judge ourselves even more harshly. Remler identified this internal criticism as actually detrimental to great playing. Remler touches on this in an interview with Berklee Today, Berklee’s alumni magazine when she is asked, “You have said before that you try to ‘get rid of the jury in your head.’ What does that do for you?” and responds,

Every time I can do it, which is maybe 75 percent of the time now, it’s great. I have better timing, and I sound so much better. It would be different if the condemning jury worked. If you played a few bars and the jury said, "You stink, you’re terrible," and that egged you on to play better, that would be great. But it doesn’t, it makes you play worse. So if you can get those judgments out of your mind, you can be freer and play much better. And if you’re going to play bebop, you don’t have time for all that thinking (Taylor 17).

But does she block out everything? No. Just that which she finds hostile. She stays open to the audience, as is shown when she’s asked by Berklee Today, “When you go onstage or into a studio, are you there to please the audience ore to please yourself?” (Taylor 17). Remler responds, “It’s really both. What I like to do the best is lose myself—to get my head out of the way. I try to be some kind of channel. But I try to get the thinking out of the way” (Taylor 17). In this way Remler transcends her category as a woman and is able to play her best from a place where categories lose their meaning.

Competition and Proving Yourself

When asked that question of questions, “Why are…female instrumentalists still the exception? Do you…do you have a reason—is there a reason for this?” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy_NE7iRMpg). Remler replies,

Uh, the thing that I can think of is there’s a lot of intimidation, you know, when you get, when you get up on stage. And in the early years when I just started playing and wasn’t very good, uh, it was very intimidating. You know, uh, there were times in New York City where you put your name on a list to be able to sit in with a jam session and they wouldn’t call my name, ‘cause they thought I would play folk music, like, you know, uh, Joan Baez, you know or something. So that intimidation made me discouraged—may discourage some women form keeping pushing. But, um, I wanted to express myself so much that I didn’t see anything but ‘Me,’ you know, that I wanted to play great (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy_NE7iRMpg).

This experience shows that sometimes you’re not even given the chance to prove yourself before you are shut down. Intimidation and competition are historical features of jazz, especially at jam sessions. It is assumed that discouraging fledgling players will make them come back a second time with more fire. For Remler, however, “The music is going to suffer if the motivation is to compete with others, and if I’m only playing to get people’s approval” (allthingsemily.com). Remler replaces this false motivation with an “original motivation” to “play great and feel good” (Taylor 17). Part of why the approval of others is a poor basis for musical choices is that that approval might be elusive at times. Remler remembers of her years at Berklee “I just wanted to be accepted as a jazz guitarist. But that can drive you crazy. Because you never do get the approval—at least not completely” (Taylor 17). Remler elaborates, “You can get the approval of your peers and one guy will say you can’t play and you’re shattered” (Taylor 17). Through her experiences playing in groups, Remler saw that depending on the approval of others to bolster her own sense of musical worth was not necessary and at times impossible. Remler elaborates on this in Berklee Today when she’s asked, “Did you feel that way at first [as if you had to prove yourself]?” and responds,

Tremendously so. Especially when I was at school. It’s just natural that when kids are at school that they’re going to be competitive. Plus the fact that I was a girl. So I got this ‘I’m gonna show these guys’ attitude—which wasn’t conducive to creative playing. (Taylor 17).

But how does one reject something as ubiquitous as competition in jazz environments if this competition slows you down and stops your creativity short? Instead of physically avoiding it—which might mean the end of pursuing jazz as a player—Remler explains, “I consciously tried to put that type of feeling [of competition] out of my mind. By the time I got to be about 21 years old, that feeling was gone” (Taylor 17). Working to change the way you think takes intense, long-term focus. Remler uses subtle mental discipline to filter the kinds of experiences she has while playing jazz, thereby enabling her career to continue and thrive.

Remler’s Boot Camp

Just Playing

In her instructional video Bebop and Swing Guitar, Remler discusses how she practices and what skills she thinks are most critical to hone great playing. Her methods are surprisingly simple. She says,

Basically the way I learned to play was by making rhythm tapes and jamming along with them…When I make a record I make rhythm tapes of every single song, with the metronome so I can still check that I’m ok, that I’m right. And I lay down rhythms tracks—about five minutes per tune—and I jam over it. And if I can’t do a particular lick, I stop the tape recorder, do the lick 15, 20 times and then I resume playing over it until I’m comfortable. That’s the way I practice. It’s very uncomplicated (Bebop).

When asked by Berklee Today “Do you get the same joy from music today as you did back then [when attending Berklee], or do you take a different angle now?” (Taylor 16). Remler replies, “I have to work very hard that it’s not a different angle. It can turn into your livelihood, and your business. You can lose a lot of that innocent, pure motivation to be a great musician” (Taylor 16). The above practicing style seems like a good way to maintain pure motivation while you play.

Brenda Ueland, in If You Want to Write, echoes Remler’s emphasis on simple practicing methods, recalling,

Before, I had thought that to produce a work of painting or literature, you scowled and you thought long and ponderously and weighted everything solemnly and learned everything that all artists had ever done aforetime, and what their influences and schools were, and you were extremely careful about design and balance and getting interesting planes into your painting, and avoided, with the most stringent severity, showing the faintest academical tendency, and were strictly modern. And so on and so on. But the moment I read Van Gogh’s letter I knew what art was, and the creative impulse. It is a feeling of love and enthusiasm for something, and in a direct, simple, passionate and true way, you try to show the beauty in things to others, by drawing it” (Ueland 19).

Ueland’s realizations about the best environments for thriving creativity align closely with Remler’s practicing methods, which allow her room for free exploration while keeping her grounded. The exercises that she stops and drills into her fingers are ones she recently came up with, further developing her ability to play what she hears. So first on Remler’s list of important skills is a relaxed practice style, guided by inspiration and the desire to play well—nothing more.

The Metronome

In her Bebop video Remler plugs the importance of rhythm constantly, emphasizing “Rhythm is the most important thing. It must swing. Now, you can play a million notes and you can play a million chords but unless it’s in the groove and unless it feels good it’s not gonna make it. So you have to learn how to swing properly” (Bebop). How do you achieve this? Remler says, “I teach my students to play along with the metronome so they can get as close to perfection as they can” (Bebop). More specifically, by placing the metronome on beats two and four to simulate the beats where the high hat comes together, Remler creates a timeline for checking whether her time is dragging or rushing. Remler gives several analogies for feeling swing. In one she suggests, “What you have to do is really feel the beat just as if it was an electrocardiogram…You wanna be on the crest of the wave” (Bebop). Locking into the pulse of each beat can be meditative and, as Remler says, fun. Keeping your focus on the beat can be a ground base of concentration, laying the foundation for more complex rhythmic exploration.

Songs that exemplify this relaxed, in-the-pocket playing include ‘Del Sasser’ off of Transitions. In the original Cannonball Adderley version, the melody is doubled on alto saxophone and cornet.

This is answered by a figure doubled by the bass, piano and accented by the drums.

Remler’s arrangement plays with this original arrangement. In her version the melody is doubled by trumpet and guitar and the lower, chromatic figure is doubled on the bass and the guitar. Even more so than in the Adderley version, in Remler’s ‘Del Sasser’ these doublings are backed by almost completely by silence, so the timing of the phrases and the cohesion of the corresponding players is critical. Arranging difficult figures in an exposed setting shows Remler’s confidence in her timing and her view of it as an arena for exploration.

In ‘Searchin’,’ a little-known, down tempo Duke Ellington piece, Remler’s in-the-pocket playing is also exposed, though in a different fashion. Here the space isn’t in instrumental density but in time. Because the piece is down-tempo, there is more space for rhythmic vagaries, so you have to be all the more attentive to the imaginary metronome. Here Remler’s playing is laid back, meaning that her placement of the swung eighth note is closer to a sixteenth note

than a triplet.

In this style of playing the first eighth note is carefully placed on each quarter-note pulse, but the

second, swung eighth note is placed just before the next pulse, giving the song a lazy, but

controlled feel. It’s as relaxed as it could be, while still being in time.

Developing a good ear for rhythmic nuance allows Remler to explore more complicated rhythmic figures. For example, fast, syncopated rhythms are featured commonly in her later compositions, such as ‘Nunca Mais,’ ‘Transitions,’ and ‘Catwalk.’ ‘Nunca Mais,’ according to Remler in her liner notes, means nevermore in Portuguese. Remler says, “This is my tribute to all the authentic Brazilian music I’ve learned about from the musicians in Astrud Gilberto’s band” (Leonard Feather). Remler begins ‘Nunca Mais’ with a fast-paced, syncopated vamp that reappears throughout the piece. Her comping throughout the body of the piece is lively and uplifting, making much use of broken time. Though her playing is fast and furious now, compared to the earlier, calmer examples, each beat, whether distinctly played or playfully avoided, is still carefully observed.

Melodic Embellishment

The guitar is an extremely versatile instrument. When playing melodies or melodic solos, techniques such as chord-melody can bolster the sound and give the guitarist more expressional control. Chord-melody is playing the melody in the highest note of every chord so that you are accompanying yourself. This enables you to play songs alone in a comprehensive way, or, within an ensemble, to bolster your sound within a group.

Remler uses chord-melody in the opening of ‘In a Sentimental Mood’ off of Firefly to back her take on the melody, adding several reharmonizations within each original chord change. Her use of chord–melody here gives her full reign over the harmonic nature of the piece, which is handy when she has something so specific in mind. She plays the chords sometimes with the melody as one voice and other times in between it as two.

To further bolster a melody, the spaces in between phrases or in the pauses within phrases can give the piece more momentum and reinforce the expression of the passing harmonies. Remler’s term for these fills is an ‘answer.’ In her Bebop video, Remler notes that Wes Montgomery also makes use of this technique, saying, “A lot of Wes Montgomery’s music is question and answer form” (Bebop). She shows what she means with an example, “Here’s my question…”

“…and here’s my answer…”

“…where there’s room to put the chords. I played the melody, and I answered myself with the chords and I’m a totally independent musician here.” (Bebop). This melodic embellishment can be found in Remler’s ‘Blues for Herb’ found on East to West as well as in ‘Firefly’ off of Firefly. In each she plays the melody and answers it with two syncopated chords in the space between phrases.

Filling out your playing with these techniques arms you with ways to have a full sound. These options, in turn, give you more independence as a musician, whether you’re literally alone, or are playing within a group. Remler sees this as necessary for good musicianship, stressing, “You should be able to be totally self-sufficient without the band behind you” (Bebop). You should be able to play the song “all the way through in exact time by yourself. And let me hear you take a solo and let me hear the chord changes behind it” (Bebop). The use of chord-melody and chord fills clarify that you know exactly what chords you’re playing over in a way that you could side-step in their absence. In solos this harmonic assurance can also be expressed—by using the guide tones.

The Guide Tones—An Important Tool for Improvisation

An important skill for holding your own is knowing the notes that are most important to the passing chords. Remler calls these notes guide tones, and explains, “The guide tones are the most important notes of the chords—they’re the third or the seventh of the chord” (bebop). Remler explains that guide tones are “essentially the meat of the chord. Not the root, not the fifth, ‘cause that’s not gonna tell you whether the chord is major of minor” (Bebop). Guide tone sequences are guide tones from each passing chord strung together to form a guideline for improvisation. The guide tone sequences that are the easiest to hear are chromatic ones, as in the following example.

Because the guide tones are the third or the seventh of the chord, the above chords allow for several choices of guide tone sequences. From DMaj7 to Dm7 you could focus on the major third (F#) moving down to a minor third (F), or the major seventh (C#) moving down to a minor seventh (C). In going from Dm7 to CMaj7, many notes move—even the root does—but we are only concerned with thirds and sevenths. So we could hear the third of Dm7 (F) moving down to the third of CMaj7 (E) or we could hear the seventh of Dm7 (C) moving down the seventh of CMaj7 (B). Because of the particular voicings of these chords, your ear will probably hear the F#-F-E-Eb sequence most prominently as those are the highest notes of each chord. So if you were to take a solo based on these chord changes you could build phrases around F# in the first measure, E in the second, etc. This technique allows you to get more quickly to the meat of the harmonic changes. It also saves you from using your ear to avoid the key changes, especially when the difference is only one sharp or flat.

But guide tones don’t always move in semitones. In Remler’s solo on ‘Look to the Sky’ off of Firefly, we can see how she uses guide tones while taking a solo.

As you can see, the first note in her solo is a guide tone, the third of EbMaj7 (G). Focusing a phrase on the third or the seventh of a chord is effective in that it tells the listener the most important information about that chord, therefore outlining the chord progression clearly. The highest note of the phrase is the seventh (D). Opening with the third and peaking with the seventh clearly tells the listener that we’re in Eb Major.

We’re still in EMaj7 at the start of this phrase, and Remler begins it as she began the last one, with the third, but this time she passes through the seventh and lands prematurely on the next chord’s third (Eb-7’s Gb). The phrase then falls, hitting Db, Eb-7’s seventh, twice. None of the guide tones in this phrase are on strong beats, making their usage subtle to the ear.

This is not always the case, however, as in the following sequence.

Here the guide tones feature frame each measure, beginning and ending them. The sequence opens with an F, the seventh of G-7. Beat two begins with Bb, the third. Then on the and of three and four we hit B and F again. At the start of the next measure, we begin on E (the third of C7b9), and the measure ends on Bb ( the seventh). Overall in this particular chord change, we would hear the F (on beat one of measure one) moving down to the E (of beat one of measure 2) most prominently. This is because of how the guide tones were placed—on strong beats and in corresponding places—both on beat one.

Overall, each chord change features a certain guide tone movement. In Remler’s words, to hear the guide tones, “Try hearing the chords and making melodies to emphasize what’s happening between those changes. Now every song in this world has a guide tone line”…which is “the smoothest possible connecting line through a set of chords” choosing from either the third or the seventh of that chord (bebop). Here is Remler’s entire solo for the A section of the ‘Look to the Sky’ followed by the corresponding guide tone movements featured in that solo.

Guide tone movements:

These guide tones provide an inner melody within the solo that gives it an overall direction and focus. Using these essential notes helps immensely in playing solo guitar as well. Remler explains, “So when you’re taking an improvisational solo over it, the way to make that change—‘make that change,’ in other words, uh, without relying on anybody to play the chords behind you, you have to play those notes, play that situation.” (Bebop).

Conclusion

In the world of jazz, most of the role models you have to choose from are male. As a guitarist, as far as emulation goes, I’ve got Joe Pass and John Scofield and the like—mostly very manly men—often with large mustaches—shredding, staying in the pocket (as a local player leading a workshop once explained “What’s near your pocket? Your balls. So playing in the pocket really means rocking your balls off”). It’s hard for me to feel motivated about showing that last guy up, taking that fifth chorus by force, or learning to wail. Often I ask myself—where am I? Am I lost? Did I stumble into the little boys club? Do I even want to be in a little boys club?

Emily Remler is my favorite guitarist and such an inspiration to me. Is it because she is the most famous female jazz guitarist to date? That’s absolutely part of it. One of the most intimate and shaping parts of playing jazz is emulating other musicians that inspire you. I remember buying my first Emily Remler CD and just staring at the cover in the record store. A young looking woman with long dark hair turning her head away with her hand draped over her beautiful cherry red guitar—a woman holding a guitar! Just the picture was so inspiring. I find it hard to emulate people of the opposite sex sometimes, and I think that that may be due to their philosophies often clashing with mine. When men talk about jazz in terms of competition with one another I feel like their speaking some other language that doesn’t include my definition of success. When people talk about shredding and playing aggressively, I feel like that is something I could try on, but not something I want to inhabit. So when I found Emily Remler, she was finally someone I could emulate. A model—both because I loved her sound but also because her life story was a road map for how to play guitar in a man’s world and survive. Everything about her I could relate to. And that was a key component missing from my access to jazz. I needed a player who inspired me musically and philosophically, but also who I could literally see myself in. I value her transparency regarding her (sometimes very personal) views and thought processes regarding women and music, her verbalization of often unspoken and therefore (to some) unrecognized challenges faced by women playing jazz, and her willingness to share what worked for her through the surprisingly user-friendly nature of her subtle, intuitive observations.

Both in her artistic philosophy and music, Remler’s thinking is clear. It is rare to have a jazz artist be so unveiled about their methods as a musician. It’s common for jazz musicians to foster larger than life, mysterious accounts of themselves—devoid of stories from the days when they were unknown. It’s also unusual for a musician to give out so much of their own musical strategies, as if to reveal these will end the whole charade. Remler’s tell-all accounts are refreshing in this arena, making what she learned accessible to all that seek her out, and ensuring that in many ways her legacy continues in terms of education as well as inspiration—even if many of her albums don’t.

Sadly I think most of her comments about sexism made in the 80s still could be said today. Today we may have rid ourselves of blatantly overt sexism in the jazz world, but the subtler versions of sexism linger. This makes it as difficult for women today to discuss sexism, as it is easy for men to overlook sexism or deny it as a figment of a woman’s emotionally creative imagination. As Remler’s career shows, sexual discrimination can be incredibly discouraging, but as her story also shows, women can hold valuable places in the world of jazz instrumentalists.

I think the lesson here is one of incredible balance. Being sensitive is a profound gift, but to let it thrive you have to grow thick skin—especially if you’re a woman—but only thick to certain things! So you might say, ‘Remarks about my gender I won’t let through to me. I won’t let it touch me. But this wonderful scene, or subtle feeling—I will let those things in.’ So you are letting in the good—all that inspires and fuels you, and keeping out the bad—anything that discourages or douses your fire. And this takes constant evaluation and attention to subtle feelings inside yourself—to constantly ask, ‘Is this good for my creativity or bad?’ It is interesting to see how closely Remler monitors her thoughts and feelings and their relatedness to her playing. Honing in on the subtleties of the mind onstage allowed her to protect herself against encroaching, harmful attitudes, carving a path beyond trivial gender-based judgments, the negative feelings of competition and having to prove yourself, towards a higher musical plane.

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