Free jazz has not produced many notable guitarists. Experimental
musicians drawn to the guitar have had few jazz role models;
consequently, they've typically looked to rock-based players for
inspiration.
James "Blood" Ulmer is one of the few exceptions --
an outside guitarist who has forged a style based largely on the
traditions of African-American vernacular music. Ulmer is an adherent of
saxophonist/composer Ornette Coleman's vaguely defined Harmolodic
theory, which essentially subverts jazz's harmonic component in favor of
freely improvised, non-tonal, or quasi-modal counterpoint. Ulmer plays
with a stuttering, vocalic attack; his lines are frequently texturally
and chordally based, inflected with the accent of a soul-jazz tenor
saxophonist. That's not to say his sound is untouched by the rock
tradition -- the influence of Jimi Hendrix on Ulmer is strong -- but
it's mixed with blues, funk, and free jazz elements. The resultant music
is an expressive, hard-edged, loudly amplified hybrid that is, at its
best, on a level with the finest of the Harmolodic school.
Ulmer began his career playing in funk bands, first in Pittsburgh
(1959-1964) and later around Columbus, OH (1964-1967). Ulmer spent four
years in Detroit before moving to New York in 1971. He landed a
nine-month gig at the famed birthplace of bop, Minton's Playhouse, and
played very briefly with Art Blakey. In 1973, he recorded Rashied Ali
Quintet with the ex-John Coltrane drummer on the Survival label. That
same year, he hooked up with Ornette Coleman, whose concept affected
Ulmer's music thereafter. The guitarist's recordings from the late '70s
and early '80s exhibit a unique take on his mentor's aesthetic. His
blues and rock-tinged art was, if anything, more raw and aggressive than
Coleman's free jazz and funk-derived music (a reflection, no doubt, of
Ulmer's chosen instrument), but no less compelling from either an
intellectual or an emotional standpoint. In 1981, Ulmer led the first of
three record dates for Columbia, which helped to expose his music to a
wider public. Around this time Ulmer began an association with tenor
saxophonist David Murray, Bassist Amin Ali, and drummer Ronald Shannon
Jackson. As the Music Revelation Ensemble, this intermittent assemblage
(with various other members added and subtracted) would produce a number
of intense, free-blowing albums over a span of almost two decades.
Ulmer's work has varied in quality over the years. In 1987, with the
cooperative group Phalanx (George Adams, tenor sax; Sirone, bass; and
Rashied Ali, drums), Ulmer drew successfully on the free jazz
expressionism that made his name. Generally, however, Ulmer's interest
in out jazz waned in the '80s and '90s, to the extent that his music
became progressively more structured, rhythmically regular, and
(arguably) less inventive. Much of his later work bears scant
resemblance to the edgy free jazz he played earlier. Nevertheless, '90s
recordings with the Music Revelation Ensemble showed him still capable
of playing convincingly in that vein.
Blood dug deeply into an investigation of the blues as the century
turned. First he recorded Memphis Blood: The Sun Sessions with guitarist
Veron Reid both performing and producing. The album also starred
veteran Ulmer sideman Charles Burnham on violin. In 2003 he issued No
Escape From the Blues, recorded at Electric Lady studio. A thorouhgly
psychedlic funky take on the genre, Reidand Burnham were present in the
same roles once more, and old friend Olu Dara stopped into to contribute
as well. In 2005 Blood released Birthright, on Joel Dorn's Hyena label.
It is easily his most intimatre recording. Completely solo in the
studio (Reid once again produced) it contains 10 orignals and two covers
of classic reportoire and takes Blood's blues jounrey to an entirely
new level.
James Blood Ulmer.1977 - Revealing
James Blood Ulmer.1978 - Tales Of Captain Black
James Blood Ulmer.1980 - Are You Glad To Be In America
James Blood Ulmer.1981 - Free Lancing
James Blood Ulmer.1982 - Black Rock
James Blood Ulmer.1983 - Odyssey
James Blood Ulmer.1987 - America-Do You Remember The Love
James Blood Ulmer.1988 - Wings
James Blood Ulmer.1989 - Blues Allnight
James Blood Ulmer.1990 - Black And Blues
James Blood Ulmer.1992 - Blues Preacher
James Blood Ulmer.1993 - Harmolodic Guitar With Strings
James Blood Ulmer.1995 - Music Speaks Louder Than Words
James Blood Ulmer.1996 - Forbidden Blues
James Blood Ulmer.2001 - Blue Blood
James Blood Ulmer.2005 - Birthright
James Blood Ulmer.2007 - Bad Blood In The City
James Blood Ulmer.2009 - In And Out
