Emily Remler Cookin’ at the Queens Live in Las Vegas 1984 & 1988

By Don Berryman

Emily Remler Cookin’ at the Queens Live in Las Vegas 1984 & 1988 is the first Emily Remler release In 34 years, and the only live album ever released from the unsung jazz guitar virtuoso, who tragically died on May 4, 1990, at the age of 32. This album presents over two and a half hours of stunning, swinging music recorded at the Four Queens in Las Vegas in 1984 and 1988. It will be released as a 3-LP set on November 29th and as 2-CD set on December 6th. Co-produced by “Jazz Detective” Zev Feldman and Bill Milkowski, the release includes extensive liner notes and interviews.

Emily Remler was born in Manhattan in 1957. She graduated from the  Berklee College of Music in Boston in 1976.  She then moved to New Orleans to hone her craft. She moved back to New York in 1979 where she played regularly with Eddie Gomez and Bob Moses (who would later appear on her third album Transitions). She met and jammed with John Scofield who recommended her to John Clayton. John recruited her to record with the Clayton Brothers on the West Coast. She ended up with a recording contract with Concord. For Concord she recorded seven albums, one of which was a duet with Larry Coryell.

As her visibility grew Emily Remler impressed many musicians and critics. Herb Ellis quoted in People magazine in 1982, “I’ve been asked many times who I think is coming up on guitar to carry on the tradition, and my unqualified choice is Emily.” Emily Remler won Los Angeles Times jazz critic Leonard Feather’s “Golden Feather Award” in 1981 and in 1985 and he referred to her “felicitous celebration of rhythmic and melodic elegance.” She was named jazz guitarist of the year in 1985 by Downbeat Magazine.  Mike Stern said “[Emily Remler was] an amazing player for sure. She could play her ass off. She could do everything. She was more into bebop, really playing bebop and I loved that, so I was totally cheering her on. She was badass.”

Larry Coryell in his 2007 memoir, Improvising: My Life in Music recalled hearing Emily Remler’s Catwalk upon its release. “I … was impressed, Emily was creative, smart, swung like crazy and had a time feel that was just about the best I had ever heard from any guitarist, male or female.” But there’s the rub – that he had to mention her gender with his praise. Jazz had been a men’s club and Emily felt the sting of misogyny from musicians, critics, and audiences. She had stated that misogyny as one of the things that drove her to opioid use which led to her premature death.

Jocelyn Gould says in the liner notes, “It’s unfortunate that Emily Remler is under-discussed and underappreciated. I was head of the guitar department at Humber College in Toronto and I made it a point to place her into the curriculum. Some other schools are doing that as well. At Berklee, Sheryl Bailey is doing it, but I still feel that Emily remains less talked about than she should be. Sometimes when I introduce younger women who are just starting out on the instrument to Emily Remler, they’ll say, “Why did nobody tell me about her? Why did I not know that this titan of the guitar was out there?” So it’s cool to be able to introduce her to younger people.”

Four Queens Jazz Night from Las Vegas

Selected from a previously unreleased collection of performances that were broadcast on KNPR Las Vegas in 1984 and 1988 as part of Alan Grant’s weekly radio program, Four Queens Jazz Night from Las Vegas, Emily Remler Cookin’ at the Queens captures Remler in quartet performances with pianist Cocho Arbe, bassist Carson Smith, and drummer Tom Montgomery (May 28th, 1984) and trio performances with bassist Carson Smith and drummer John Pisci (September 19th, 1988).

Four Queens Jazz Night from Las Vegas was a weekly, hour long jazz performance series produced by public radio station KNPR and distributed to 98 public radio stations nationwide by American Public Radio. The show was taped for broadcast in the French Quarter Lounge at the Four Queens Casino which was an intimate 100 seat space that was open the casino separated only by the bar. However these records do not have any trace of casino noise on them. As an excerpt from the 1988 Peabody Awards entry form states: “The program’s recording engineer/producer Brian Sanders lends a special sensitivity to program production because he is a seasoned jazz musician who understands the specific audio and aesthetic demands of jazz performance radio.” There were always three sets of music performed on those Monday nights that had to be edited down into an one hour show – so much of the material on Emily Remler’s Cookin’ at the Queens was never broadcast and is heard for the first time on this release.

The Music

One cannot listen to Emily Remler Cookin’ at the Queens album without thinking of Wes Montgomry. Emily’s style is built upon that tradition and even the repertoire in these sets is rich with both Montgomery’s compositions and tunes he often performed. Particularly in the 1984 recordings the Montgomery influence is strong. Opening with Bobby Timmon’s “Moanin’” Remler takes a similar approach at about the same tempo Wes used on Portrait Of Wes and  she presents a reverent, spirited take on Mongomery’s  “West Coast Blues”.  However when we get to the 1988 records we have more of a departure as Emily is fully using her own voice on guitar. She plays a very uptempo John Coltrane’s “Impressions” using Miles Davis’ “So What” as an intro since it supplied the chords and structure Coltrane used. This is taken at a different tempo than Wes used in Maximum Swing and she explores the melodic and harmonic possibilities within the simple, modal form. Each tune is a gem, Emily’s interpretation of Miles Davis’ “All Blues” is brilliant. She also demonstrates mastery of Latin tunes with “Samba De Orfeu” and Jobim’s “How Insensitive”.

The release includes extensive liner notes by author and album co-producer Bill Milkowski, plus recollections from Eddie Gomez, Russell Malone, Mike Stern, Rodney Jones, Dave Stryker, Mimi Fox, Sheryl Bailey and more

Track  Listing

Side A

1. Moanin’ (B. Timmons) 9:43
2. How Insensitive Insensatez (A. C. Jobim, N. Gimbel, V. De Moraes)   9:52
3. Autumn Leaves (J. Prévert, J. Mercer, J. Kosma) 8:03

Side B

1. Polka Dots And Moonbeams (J. Burke, J. Van Heusen)  10:01
2. Samba De Orfeu (A. Maria, L. Bonfá) 8:52
3. Hot House (T. Dameron) / What Is This Thing Called Love? (C. Porter) 5:58

Side C

1. You Don’t Know What Love Is (D. Raye, G. De Paul)   11:00
2. West Coast Blues (W. Montgomery)    11:56
3. Tenor Madness (S. Rollins)  4:50

Side D

1. Out Of Nowhere (E. Heyman, J. Green) 8:19
2. Manha De Carnaval (A. Maria, L. Bonfá)  13:35
3. Cisco (P. Metheny)  6:14

Side E

1. Yesterdays (J. Kern, O. Harbach)    8:18
2. All Blues (M. Davis) 13:15
3. Someday My Prince Will Come (F. Churchill, L. Morey) 9:02

Side F

1. So What (M. Davis) / Impressions (J. Coltrane)  11:13
2. D-Natural Blues (W. Montgomery) 8:18

Support Public Radio

In addition to Emily Remler Cookin’ at the Queens, in 2016 another album was made from these KNPR radio tapes from Four Queens Jazz Night from Las Vegas: Shirley Horn: Live at the 4 Queens. And recordings from Alan Grant’s previous radio show, Portraits in Jazz series on WABC-FM, which would broadcast shows from inside the venue –  gave us the albums John Coltrane One Down, One Up recordings, and Wes Montgomery Maximum Swing [see my review], and others. Tapes from Seattle radio station KING  gave us Ahmad Jamal – Emerald City Nights: Live at the Penthouse [see my review].  And it is not just the archives that have value, if you hear any jazz on the radio today it is most likely on a public radio station. I have fond memories of listening to jazz greats on The Jazz Image radio show by Leigh Kamman on Minnesota Public Radio on Saturday nights til the wee hours, [on this show he interviewed Emily Remler in 1989].  I am proud to support  KBEM jazz radio  in the Twin Cities.

Original post on Jazz Police http://jazzpolice.com/archives/16764