James Blood Ulmer

Willie James Ulmer was born on February 8, 1940, in St. Matthews, South Carolina, the eldest of eight children. His father, James Ulmer, was a Baptist minister who led a gospel vocal quartet called the Southern Sons. His mother, Willie Mae (Comings) Ulmer, was a strict Baptist who did not allow secular music in the house.

His father gave him his first guitar when he was four, and at seven he began singing with the Southern Sons, his first professional work. When his voice changed he concentrated on guitar and found inspiration in Chuck Berry and the blues, which his parents considered the devil's music. The nickname Blood came from older musicians who called him Youngblood because he looked so young.

Ulmer graduated from high school in South Carolina and then left home as a teenager. His real education came on the bandstand: in church with his father's quartet, then backing doo-wop groups such as the Del Vikings in Pittsburgh, playing soul jazz in Pittsburgh and Columbus, Ohio, and working in the house jazz band of Detroit's 20 Grand club. In Detroit he also taught music for several years. He later described jazz training as a ladder that started with church music, then the blues, then the avant-garde, before a musician could play whatever he wanted.

From about 1959 to 1964 Ulmer worked in Pittsburgh, followed by the Columbus, Ohio, area from 1964 to 1967, and then Detroit. He recorded with organist Hank Marr in 1964 and with John Patton on Accent on the Blues (1969).

After moving to New York in 1971 he played with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Joe Henderson (Multiple, 1973), Paul Bley, Rashied Ali and Larry Young (Lawrence of Newark, 1973). He became the first electric guitarist to record and tour extensively with Ornette Coleman, joining the band that became Prime Time, and absorbed Coleman's harmolodic theory.

His debut as leader, Tales of Captain Black (1979), featured Coleman on alto saxophone, Jamaaladeen Tacuma on bass and Denardo Coleman on drums. Are You Glad to Be in America? (Rough Trade, 1980) brought his singing to the fore, and Columbia then issued Free Lancing (1981), Black Rock (1982) and Odyssey (1983). He also appeared on Arthur Blythe's Columbia albums Lenox Avenue Breakdown (1979) and Illusions (1980).

He formed the Music Revelation Ensemble around 1980 and co-led Phalanx with George Adams in the 1980s. Later albums included America, Do You Remember the Love? (Blue Note, 1987), a run of records for Japan's DIW label in the 1990s, and the Vernon Reid produced blues sessions Memphis Blood (2001), No Escape from the Blues (2003), Birthright (2005) and Bad Blood in the City (2007). He launched the American Revelation label in 2009, guested with James Carter's organ trio at the Blue Note in 2011 and kept performing into his eighties, closing his career at the Detroit Jazz Festival on September 1, 2024.

In Pittsburgh Ulmer married and had two children, Greg and Donna; his son Michael was born in Detroit. His first marriage, to Sara Penn, ended in divorce in 1984. He married Eva Mikusch in 2017 after a long relationship; the family described her as his companion of sixteen years. He had six children in all: Greg (Gregory), Donna Marie, Michael, Gia Rae Winsryg-Ulmer, Damu Musawwir and Nisa Brunner. Donna Marie Ulmer died in 2024. He also left a brother, Dennie Leroy Ulmer, two sisters, the Rev. Shirley Ann Abraham and Rosetta Pope, twelve grandchildren and thirteen great-grandchildren. While recording in London around 1980 he became known for wearing a bowler hat.

Ulmer was a committed practitioner of harmolodics, the approach developed by Ornette Coleman in which no instrument or chord structure dominates. He took the idea further by tuning every string of his guitar to the same note, which he said gave him more freedom. In a 2005 DownBeat interview he argued that guitar technique had stagnated after Jimi Hendrix died and could only advance if the guitar would stop following the piano. He resisted being confined to one style, explaining that he created separate bands for blues, harmolodic music and free funk so he could keep every part of his music alive.

Critics described Ulmer as a singular figure. Robert Palmer of the New York Times called him the most original electric guitarist to emerge since Jimi Hendrix, and critic Greg Tate called him the missing link between Hendrix and Wes Montgomery on one hand and P-Funk and Mississippi Fred McDowell on the other. His mix of free jazz, funk and blues helped shape the downtown New York scene, punk and no wave audiences, and later guitarists such as Vernon Reid, who called him one of one, made of the stuff that blues is made of: raw, pure, elemental.

His family said that Bad Blood in the City (2007) was nominated for a Grammy. DownBeat featured his album Birthright as a blues album of the year in December 2005. In 2009 he served as a judge for the 8th annual Independent Music Awards.

As leader: Tales of Captain Black (1979); Are You Glad to Be in America? (1980); Free Lancing (1981); Black Rock (1982); Odyssey (1983); Part Time (1984); Live at the Caravan of Dreams (1986); America, Do You Remember the Love? (1987); Blues Allnight (1990); Revealing (1990); Black and Blues (1991); Blues Preacher (1993); Music Speaks Louder than Words (1995); Harmolodic Guitar with Strings (1997); Forbidden Blues (1998); Memphis Blood: The Sun Sessions (2001); Blue Blood (2001); No Escape from the Blues (2003); Back in Time (2005); Birthright (2005); Bad Blood in the City: The Piety Street Sessions (2007); In and Out (2009).

With Music Revelation Ensemble: No Wave (1980), Music Revelation Ensemble (1988), Elec. Jazz (1990), After Dark (1992), In the Name of... (1994), Knights of Power (1996), Cross Fire (1997). With Phalanx: Got Something Good for You (1986), Original Phalanx (1987), In Touch (1988).

After his final concert at the Detroit Jazz Festival on September 1, 2024, Ulmer's health declined and he withdrew from performing. He died peacefully on Wednesday, June 3, 2026, at the Upper Eastside Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Manhattan, aged 86. His family said the cause was cardiac arrest. The death was announced on June 8, 2026, the day of a private funeral, and the family promised a public celebration of his life and asked fans to respect their privacy and play Blood's music loud.