Guitar and Vocals | 1940-2026

James Blood Ulmer was born Willie James Ulmer in St. Matthews, South Carolina on February 8, 1940, sang with the gospel quartet the Southern Sons from age nine, and moved to Pittsburgh in 1959 to begin a professional career that ran through Columbus and Detroit before landing him in New York in 1971. He played at Minton's Playhouse for nine months, worked with Art Blakey and Larry Young, and was introduced to Ornette Coleman by Rashied Ali in 1973. He moved in with Coleman and spent a year studying harmolodic theory: a compositional framework that freed melody from fixed harmonic hierarchy and gave all instruments equal improvisational standing. Ulmer had been moving toward that territory independently through gospel, blues and free jazz, and Coleman's framework gave him a language for it. He appeared on Coleman's "Dancing in Your Head" and recorded his debut "Tales of Captain Black" (Artists House, 1979) with Coleman, Jamaaladeen Tacuma and Denardo Coleman, establishing the sound the press called "harmolodic funk." Public Image Ltd. took him on their US tour in 1980. The New York Times in 1981 called him "the most original electric guitarist to emerge since the late Jimi Hendrix." He continued recording across DIW, Blue Note and other labels through the 1990s and 2000s and performed until near his death. Ulmer died in New York City on June 3, 2026, aged 86.