Dave Rempis

Dave Rempis (born March 24, 1975) is an American free jazz saxophonist. He plays the soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone saxophones.

Life and career Dave was born in Wellesley, Massachusetts in 1975. He began his musical studies at the age of 8. While caddying in the Boston area, Rempis was given a deep collection of jazz LPs, in exchange for transferring them to cassette tape. In 1993, Rempis began a degree in classical saxophone at Northwestern University with Frederick Hemke. As part of his studies in anthropology, he spent a year at the International Centre for African Music and Dance at the University of Ghana in Legon, studying African music and ethnomusicology. After graduating from Northwestern in 1997, Rempis decided to focus on performing, and in March 1998 was asked to replace saxophonist Mars Williams in the Chicago jazz band The Vandermark 5, led by saxophonist Ken Vandermark.

During his tenure with The Vandermark Five, Rempis also began to develop many Chicago-based groups and cooperative units as Triage, The Rempis Percussion Quartet, The Engines, Ballister, and The Rempis/Daisy Duo. He recorded for labels such as Okka Disk, 482 Music, Clean Feed, Not Two, and Aerophonic, an artist-run label that Rempis founded in the winter of 2013. His collaborations include a wide variety of creative improvised music legends, ranging from Peter Brötzmann and John Tchicai to Joe McPhee, Marshall Allen, and Roscoe Mitchell.

Rempis also works as a music programmer in the Chicago area. He curated the weekly "Improvised Music" concert series at Elastic Arts (2002-2023), helped establish the Umbrella Music collective and its annual music festival, worked as lead organizer of the Downtown Sound Gallery concert series at Gallery 37, and organized the yearly Pitchfork Music Festival.

Rempis added the soprano saxophone to his arsenal of instruments after his friend and mentor Mars Williams (d. November 2023) left his soprano saxophone to Rempis after years of battling cancer.

Discography

As leader/co-leader

As sideman

with Audio One

with The Resonance Ensemble

with The Territory Band

with The Vandermark 5

others