James “Blood“ Ulmer (1940 - 2026)

Photo by Peter Gannushkin

ByMartin Schray

“I don’t take a stand. I follow. I followed Ornette Coleman’s harmolodic theory, and I still follow it, and I followed it so closely that I realized that to truly follow it in the best way possible, I have to become a harmolodic person, to be able to follow the harmolodic system. So that’s why I’m talking about blues and jazz and boom-boom, and Third Rail and all this - because I am a harmolodic person,” James “Blood” Ulmer once said in an interview with Ted Panken. Ulmer’s style was absolutely unique in its harmolodic nature; no guitarist could blend free jazz, blues, jazz-rock, and funk quite like he did - perhaps because he played all kinds of Black music from an early age before finding his own path. As has only just become known, the guitarist passed away last week at the age of 86.

Born Willie James Ulmer in St. Matthews, South Carolina in 1940, Ulmer was already playing guitar at the age of four, his father taught him his first chords. He initially played in a gospel quartet, then - in 1959 - he moved to Pittsburgh as a professional musician, where he initially played in R&B bands. In the early and mid-1960s, he played in organ-dominated soul-jazz bands before he moved to Detroit and played in bands of such diverse musicians as Dionne Warwick, Chuck Jackson, George Adams, and John Patton. In 1971, he moved to New York City and there he performed with Art Blakey, Paul Bley, Larry Young, and Joe Henderson. It was also there that he met Ornette Coleman, an encounter that would shape his musical outlook for the rest of his life. Ulmer became a member of Ornette Coleman’s live bands in the 1970s and from that point on, he was the “harmolodic person” he talked about in Panken’s interview. Ulmer and Coleman then jointly developed the concept - originally conceived by Ornette for jazz - into “Harmolodic Funk”. This can be heard for the first time on Ulmer’s debut album Tales of Captain Black (Artists House, 1979), which featured Coleman and his son Denardo (drums) as well as Ulmer’s longtime collaborator Jamaladeen Tacuma on bass.

Starting in 1980, Ulmer led his own trio with Calvin Weston (drums) and Amin Ali (bass), with whom he performed his own compositions based on Coleman’s harmolodic concept. Later, he also worked with George Adams (ts) and the Music Revelation Ensemble, whose album No Wave was released in Germany in 1980 by Moers Music. Ulmer usually struck the strings very percussively with his thumb and favored sometimes bizarre open tunings, including the Ornette Coleman-inspired harmolodic tuning. But blues, distorted sounds, idiosyncratic bends, and noisy interludes also shaped his sharp, edgy, clanging playing. The recordings with his own trio that followed - such as Are You Glad to Be in America? (Rough Trade, 1980), Free Lancing (CBS, 1981), Odyssey (Columbia, 1983), Revealing (In+Out Records, 1990) or the outrageous live recordings from New York’s Knitting Factory in the 1990s - reveal a monster on the guitar. Absurd staccatos, splintering sounds, and funk rhythms pile up in the songs; in such moments, the giant Ulmer had no competition, the music shows an artist at the height of his art. During that time he teamed up with tenor saxophonist George Adams once more and created the quartet Phalanx. Their Got Something Good For You (Moers Music,1986) featured Amin Ali and Calvin Weston again, whereas Original Phalanx (DIW, 1987) and In Touch (DIW, 1988) boasted bassist Sirone and drummer Rashied Ali. Between these albums Ulmer released America Do You Remember the Love? (Blue Note, 1986), a jazz-rock quartet session with guitarist Nicky Skopelitis, bassist Bill Laswell and Ronald Shannon Jackson, heavily influenced by Laswell’s ambient/world philosophy. 

James “Blood“ Ulmer’s influence on the experimental New York downtown scene of the 1980s is undeniable; bands like DNA and Mars drew inspiration from him, and Living Colour’s guitarist Vernon Reid produced the man’s blues albums from the 2000s, for example Birthright (2005) or Bad Blood In The City. The Piety Street Sessions (2007), both on Hyena Records. “Ulmer is fully aware of his craft, both theoretically and idiomatically - he just never let those concerns hold him back. He’s a rocker. He’s unapologetically himself. He is the blues. Himself. Not his rules,” said Reid. Even at the end of his career Ulmer proved that statement and was able to soar, for example when he joined The Thing on Baby Talk (Live At Molde International Jazz Festival 2015),(The Thing Records 2017). Ulmer also released Back in Time with his Odyssey Band on Pi Recordings in 2005 featuring downtown musicians drummer Warren Benbow and violinist Charles Burnham.

At the 2024 Detroit Jazz Festival James “Blood“ Ulmer played his final concert, retiring soon after due to deteriorating health. The previous year, during a two-night residency at Solar Myth in Philadelphia, he played a concert with Calvin Weston (drums) and Mark Peterson (bass), which summed up his sound in a nutshell: the blues, the soul, the free funk - and the harmolodics.

James “Blood“ Ulmer died June, 3rd, “his music was fearless, and so was his spirit”, his family said in a statement. One of the greatest Black music guitarists ever has gone. May he rest in peace.

Watch James “Blood“ Ulmer at Solar Myth in Philadelphia in 2023: