James Burnham

Over three days in April 2001, James "Blood" Ulmer and producer/guitarist Vernon Reid (yes, of Living Colour fame) went into the legendary Sun Studios in Memphis and kicked out some of the greasiest, knottiest, most surreal blues music ever. The blues have always been part of Ulmer's iconography, even when deeply entrenched in the harmolodic theory he helped to develop with Ornette Coleman. Over the years on his albums for DIW, Ulmer has with mixed results attempted to dig into the blues wholesale, but until now, with the aid of Vernon Reid and a cast of stellar if not well-known musicians, Blood hasn't been able to indulge his obsession to the hilt. All 14 songs on Memphis Blood are covers, many of them blues classics from the canon, with a few from Ulmer's own shrine book…

Free jazz has not produced many notable guitarists. Experimental musicians drawn to the guitar have had few jazz role models; consequently, they've typically looked to rock-based players for inspiration. James "Blood" Ulmer is one of the few exceptions an outside guitarist who has 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 Harmolodic theory, which essentially subverts jazz's harmonic component in favor of freely improvised, non-tonal, or quasi-modal counterpoint.