James Blood Ulmer Biography
2 February 1942, St. Matthews, South Carolina, USA. Although taking up guitar in childhood, between the ages of seven and 13 Ulmer's primary musical activity was as a singer in a gospel group, the Southern Sons. In 1959 he moved to Pittsburgh, then to Detroit in 1967, and then eventually to New York in 1971, where he played in the house band at the famous bebop venue, Minton's Playhouse, for nine months. In the 70s Ulmer worked or recorded with Art Blakey, "Big" John Patton, Larry Young, Joe Henderson and Paul Bley. His big break came in 1974 when he began studying and playing with Ornette Coleman, and in 1977 became a member of Coleman's controversial sextet that later became Prime Time. Ulmer also played with the Music Revelation Ensemble, whose members included David Murray, Amin Ali and Ronald Shannon Jackson, and Phalanx, with saxophonist George Adams, drummer Rashied Ali and bass player Sirone.
Ulmer sings like Jimi Hendrix, but his guitar playing is quite different: choppy, rhythmic, harmonically inventive, with a cutting, ringing tone that slices through the harmolodic contexts in which he frequently works. Over the last few years, he has toured with a power blues trio (comprising permutations of Jamaaladeen Tacuma or Amin Ali on electric bass and Grant Calvin Weston or Jackson on drums), capable of producing fiercely visceral and danceable music or, as on the group's spring 1991 visit to London, relatively mainstream funk-fusion. Most of the time he creates an intense, brooding momentum that is irresistible. On the 2001 recording Memphis Blood he worked with ex-Living Colour member Vernon Reid. Ulmer continues to explore the fringes of free jazz and blues, and in recent times has led his own collective, the 52nd Street Blues project.
Source: The Encyclopedia of Popular Music by Colin Larkin. Licensed from Muze.
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