Solos – The Jazz Sessions – James “Blood” Ulmer

SOLOS: the jazz sessions is a 39 part television music profile/performance series. Each episode features complete musical pieces, interviews and behind-the-scenes footage with some of today’s most notable jazz artists. Shot in HDTV with multiple moving cameras and a medley of elegant, cinematic lighting designs, SOLOS: the jazz sessions showcases an exciting and dynamic variety of jazz styles – from the blues and boogie-woogie to bebop and beyond.

James “Blood” Ulmer is one of the few guitarists to have 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 Harmelodic theory and plays with a stuttering, vocalic attack; his jagged lines speak with the authority of a free jazz improvisor and the accent of a soul-jazz tenor saxophonist. His solo guitar work is an expressive, hard-edged, loudly amplified hybrid. But Ulmer isn’t limited in his musical scope. In these sessions he reveals himself to be an instant inventor of repute on the flute and a memorable songwriter and blues singer with the now classic Are you Glad to be in America. James “Blood” Ulmer: dynamic, dedicated, never to be duplicated – an original.