About a year ago, I wrote a review on Bobby Rush's appearance on Martin Scorcese's program The Blues that read in part:
The Blues is a gigantic thing that most people (and most fans for that matter) never explore beyond the tourist areas populated by the giants of the trade. I personally started out with Hendrix, Stevie Ray, BB King, and Robert Johnson, and had to blaze my own path into the high weirdness from there.My favorite blues - the realest stuff - are the performances that seem just a little tacky, and the singers who are too weird to be true. If I'm not a little repelled, yet totally drawn in, it's probably not hitting the mark. . . . [I]n general, the weirder the better.
Guitarist James “Blood” Ulmer’s new album Birthright (Hyena Records) is firmly in this camp.
Ulmer started his career as a rock-funk-free-jazz guitarist of massive ability, playing with Ornette Coleman and later with Ronald Shannon Jackson's Decoding Society. Although Coleman remains a major influence, for the last two decades Ulmer has been moving away from the chaos of free jazz in favor of more structured jazz and funk sounds. Birthright (produced by fellow traveler Vernon Reid) throws all this over in favor of a gritty solo blues sound that recalls Robert Johnson and modern lords of Mississippi Gothic like Junior Kimbrough and T-Model Ford.
Like fellow free-jazz refugee Kelly Joe Phelps, Ulmer infuses his blues with dissonant harmonies and amorphous time signatures. Like Robert Johnson’s (or inveterate nutball Hasil Adkins’) recordings they are full of extra beats, shifting time signatures, and odd chord progressions that rub against everything that modern blues listeners expect to hear.
In the case of Kelly Joe Phelps, the effect of this latter-day rulebreaking – let’s call it “free blues” – is hypnotic and lovely. Blues fans absolutely should check out Shine Eyed Mister Zen or Sky Like a Broken Clock to get an idea of where he is coming from. But in Ulmer’s hands, the free blues is a raw and upsetting thing. With just a solo guitar and his voice, Ulmer makes Birthright a bleak masterpiece. Many of the performances float by – or rather crawl by – with only the suggestion of a beat, and the lyrics deal with the classic blues themes of salvation, damnation, bad love, good love, and the bitter downside of the upside of life.
Article comments
1 - SFC SKI
It seems to be the fate of many men who take to the blues to suffer lifelong obscurity. Thanks for the review.
2 - Mark Saleski
i have to say that i like Ulmer's more jazz oriented stuff, but even with the blues shouting, his messy and tangled guitar is pretty cool. quite the unique guy.
for anybody interested in Ulmer's other side, check out Tales of Captain Black (a jazz thing with Ornette Coleman) or Are You Glad To Be In America? (i'm not even sure what to call that record....jazz/funk/blues?)