James Blood Ulmer

by Jonah Borrelli

One evening during my sophomore year, a few guys down the hall were listening to a CD their friend had given them as a joke. Blues Allnight, a distinctly poor album by guitarist James Blood Ulmer, was an uncomfortable mix of power chord romps, drum machines, and fatuous R&B lyrics. While they seemed to be enjoying it for its camp value, I myself had been a serious fan of Ulmer's for years. A highly respected jazz musician, he played second fiddle to Ornette Coleman in the 70's band Prime Time. Ulmer later emerged as one of the prime movers on NYC's still-thriving "Downtown Scene", collaborating with stalwarts like sax player George Adams and ex-Coletrane drummer Rashied Ali. A friend had turned me on to "Blood" when I was a junior in high school, and since then I had searched listings for under-21 venues where he might be playing and subsequently discovered the music of some of his peers like Sonny Sharrock and David Fiuczynski. BLUES ALLNIGHT (ital.), however, sounded like a weak attempt at crossover success, while his not so subtle use of pop cliches and guitar pyrotechnics was embarrassing. The music ranged from the inane to the absurd, as is indicated by the album cover which features "Blood" donning a black cape and his guitar protruding from underneath like a giant phallus. You almost get the feeling he's in on the joke. I tried to convince my hall-mates that there was more to Ulmer than rock-and-soul excess, but my efforts were in vain.

It's a crying shame that Ulmer may not be recognized as much for his contributions to avant-garde jazz as he is for a handful of dull funk-rock records that take up a disproportionate amount of space on the shelves of record store chains. The style throughout his earlier recordings is definitely an acquired taste. Ulmer's work for Columbia and Artists House, arguably his best, features sophisticated rhythm patterns, combos that will occasionally substitute a violin or viola for the standard upright bass and, perhaps most consistently, Coleman's still-unassimilated school of 'harmolodics.' This is a style which dispenses with the normal system of key changes and designated "lead" and "rhythm" instruments, instead inviting musicians to improvise on the written melody of a song. As one can imagine, A&R men aren't likely to be any more open-minded than the listeners are. Even during this year's anticipated resurgence in the popularity of jazz music surrounding the 100th Anniversary of Duke Ellington's birth, we are more likely to find the critics showering praise on current musicians with more notoriety. However, what earns Ulmer the respect of his musical peers is that he's always changing (ital.). His work in the 60's with Hank Marr created the foundations for the organ trio sound, kept alive by Medeski, Martin and Wood. With Coleman he learned to "stretch" and helped dissolve the convention that the guitar in jazz should be used for playing conventional piano chords. In the eighties he incorporated the blues influences of his native South Carolina into a new mix that refused to be defined along the lines of traditional musical categories and befuddled the critics. Maybe Ulmer's recent work is just a passing stage in his evolving repertoire. It just might be worth the wait, and in the meantime James Blood Ulmer is still ferocious on stage. Fans should be careful not to use the term "sell-out" presumptuously- that is, unless he teams up with blues great Clarence Carter for a 20th year Anniversary version of "Strokin'".

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