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.
