Jazz Articles about James Blood Ulmer

James Blood Ulmer: Birthright

by C. Michael Bailey
May 30, 2005

James Blood Ulmer continues the all-out assault on the blues that he began with 2001's Memphis Blood and continued with No Escape From the Blues, released in 2003. After thirty years riding the edge of the avant-garde with the harmolodic Ornette Coleman and others, Ulmer emerges as a rural blues Sun Ra, a 21st century musical prophet with an irreverent smattering of Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Cecil Taylor.

Birthright is ostensibly a solo “acoustic blues recording, but saying that is ...

James Blood Ulmer: No Escape from the Blues: The Electric Lady Sessions

by David Vance
February 5, 2004

James Blood Ulmer's raw, aggressive guitar work with Ornette Coleman, Ronald Shannon Jackson, and others established him as one of the brightest lights in contemporary jazz. By adapting elements of rock (particularly Jimi Hendrix) and blues to Coleman's melodic language and incorporating bizarre alternate tunings, Ulmer, along with Sonny Sharrock and Derek Bailey, was one of the few early guitarists to find a voice in free jazz. With No Escape from the Blues, however, free jazz doesn't seem to be ...

James Blood Ulmer: No Escape From The Blues

by Charlie B. Dahan
December 5, 2003

While best known for his work with Ornette Coleman and in the modern jazz world, James “Blood" Ulmer has recorded two fantastic blues records recently. His follow up to Memphis Blood: The Sun Sessions is the equally provocative and musically exciting work No Escape From The Blues. 2003 was declared the year of the blues by Congress and what has flooded the market has been a series of reissues and recompiling of older material that give the ...

James Blood Ulmer: No Escape From the Blues

by C. Michael Bailey
October 12, 2003

Jazz Raconteur James Blood Ulmer began his blues march with the release of 2001’s Memphis Blood . On that release Living Colour’s Vernon Reid, convinced that Ulmer was one of the last great blues singers, wanted to record the iconoclast in Memphis at the famed Sun Studios. The result was a collection of blues standards presented in a way that can only be described as enigmatic genius. Dense and dedicated, Ulmer’s blues vision is large and impressive in a Chester ...

James Blood Ulmer: Blue Blood

by AAJ Staff
December 1, 2001

Blood Ulmer has always been a guitarist to watch. His leaps are blindingly quick; his pauses deafeningly still. Unfortunately his work on record has a checkered past, with masterpieces standing alongside throwaway sellout performances. Blue Blood, an obvious sequel to the most excellent record by Third Rail, features some of the same performers and a similar feel, but unfortunately falls far short.

Third Rail's South Delta Space Age, engineered (in a broad sense) by Bill Laswell, brought together complementary elements ...

James Blood Ulmer: Memphis Blood

by C. Michael Bailey
October 1, 2001

Memphis Blood could very possibly be as historic a recording as Howlin' Wolf's Evil .

Everything about this release is Romantic. The music ranges from some of the earliest recorded blues for the 1920s to novelty tunes from the '50s and '60s. The recording venue is perhaps the most famous ever, the home of seminal recordings by Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Howlin' Wolf, and Ike Turner, not to mention Elvis Presley. The universal concept of man reckoning ...

James Blood Ulmer Artists: Music Speaks Louder Than Words "Plays The Music Of Ornette Coleman"

by Glenn Astarita
August 1, 1997

The latest and perhaps most satisfying James Bllod Ulmer release since his 70's classic Odyssey, finds the harmolodic guitarist taking on six Ornette Coleman tunes and three originals. Ulmer's interpretations of “Lonely Woman," “Elizabeth" and “Skies of America" stay true to the original thematic developments and trademark Coleman harmolodic invention. Ulmer's deeply embedded blues roots and expansive knowledge of master Ornette provide the necessary fundamentals and savvy to execute such an undertaking.

Ulmer's bio is impressive. He ...