Results for "James Blood Ulmer"

James Blood Ulmer

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

Matt Gold: A Guitarist in Songwriter's Disguise

By FRIEDRICH KUNZMANN

Combining improvisational concepts with Americana aesthetics is one thing, but enveloping this blend in a songwriter approach is another story entirely. The first concept is common practice these days, the second however represents the unique character which the up and coming jny: Chicago-based guitarist Matt Gold has to offer on his compelling debut effort, Imagined Sky ...

Lift Every Voice And Sing: Twenty #BlackLives Albums That Matter

By CHRIS MAY

Jazz has been inextricably linked with social and political protest since at least the late 1930s, when Billie Holiday made famous the leftist songwriter and poet Abel Meeropol's “Strange Fruit." The song, which has a power to move that is undiminished by familiarity, likens the bodies of lynched African Americans to fruit hanging in trees.

Muriel Grossmann: Reverence

By CHRIS MAY

Since the late 1990s, the Spanish island of Ibiza has been synonymous with two things: electronic dance music and 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine aka MDMA or ecstasy. Austrian-born saxophonist Muriel Grossmann has lived on Ibiza since 2004 and her intense wall-of-sound style of astral jazz suggests she is familiar with both those pillars of Ibizan nightlife. ...

Rob Mazurek: Desert Encrypts Vol. 1

By KARL ACKERMANN

It was twenty-five years ago, in 1994, that Rob Mazurek first emerged with Man Facing East (Hep Jazz), a quartet recording solidly positioned in the post/hard bop style. Even in the interpretations of standards, there were clues that the cornetist/composer was a restless soul. In the intervening years, Mazurek has rapidly charted his own dissident destiny ...

Kokoroko: Kokoroko

By CHRIS MAY

If you ask an Afrobeat fan to name their favourite bands--excluding lineups led by Fela Kuti during his lifetime--the probability is that their top five choices will include Seun Kuti's Egypt 80 and Femi Kuti's Positive Force, both based in Lagos, along with Dele Sosimi's Afrobeat Orchestra, based in London. Other credible outfits have emerged, but ...

The Thing: Again

By MARK CORROTO

Wait for it. Wait. At some point during a performance or recording by the trio known as The Thing, the band attempts to rip your face off, beginning with your ears. It's been that way since they were founded in 2000. The Swedish/Norwegian free jazz/garage band have become a kind of jazz/punk royalty, cutting huge swaths ...

Damo Suzuki & Electric Octopus at The Menagerie

By IAN PATTERSON

Damo Suzuki & Electric Octopus The Menagerie jny: Belfast, N. Ireland May 23, 2018 Appearances can be deceptive. The Menagerie, tucked away at the Ormeau Road end of University Street, is unlike any other music venue in Belfast. The old, weather-beaten red brick may look like a Temperance Hall-turned-squat, but ...

James Blood Ulmer trio at the 2018 GetCloser Festival

By ROBERTO CIFARELLI

James Blood Ulmer and the Thing at Bochum Art Museum

By PHILLIP WOOLEVER

James Blood Ulmer and The Thing Bochum Art Museum Bochum, Germany April 8, 2018 Improvisational master guitarist Ulmer has played a number of varying, high quality shows around Germany in recent years, solidifying his reputation as a wide-ranging entertainer. Tonight's set was one of his best. A considerable contribution ...