Firefly in Bloomington, MN

It sounds very cliched to say that many of music's best and brightest have lived fast and died young, but it is so true. From
Jimi Hendrix
to
Charlie Parker
Patsy Cline
, the 20th century was full of talented artists whose lives were cut short by their self-destructive ways. In an ideal world,
Emily Remler
would have had a very long career and made it to seventy or eighty; instead, the guitarist used heroin and died of a heart attack at 32.
Firefly
was
Remler
's first album as a leader, and it is a promising debut. Joined by pianist
Hank Jones
, bassist
Bob Maize
, and drummer
Jake Hanna
, a 24-year-old
delivers an enjoyable
hard bop
date. The album isn't groundbreaking by early-'80s standards -- although
was recorded in 1981, it sounds like it could have been recorded in 1961. But there is no law stating that every young
jazz
musician who comes along has to reinvent the wheel, and
(whose influences include
Wes Montgomery
and
Herb Ellis
) brings a lot of potential to lively, swinging performances of
Horace Silver
's
"Strollin',"
McCoy Tyner
"Inception,"
Montgomery
"Movin' Along."
The New Jersey native also provides two original tunes (
"Perk's Blues"
"The Firefly"
) and pleasantly surprises listeners by unearthing a pretty but lesser-known
Antonio Carlos Jobim
song titled
"Look to the Sky."
Unlike
"The Girl From Ipanema,"
"Corcovado,"
or
"One Note Samba,"
"Look to the Sky"
is far from a
standard
; however,
's heartfelt interpretation demonstrates that the
Jobim
melody deserves to be much better known. With
,
's recording career was off to an appealing start -- a career that should have been much, much longer. ~ Alex Henderson