James 'Blood' Ulmer
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James 'Blood' Ulmer
James "Blood" Ulmer (born February 8, 1940) is an American jazz, free funk and blues guitarist and singer. Ulmer plays a Gibson Byrdland guitar. His guitar sound has been described as "jagged" and "stinging". His singing has been called "raggedly soulful". Biography Willie James Ulmer was born in St. Matthews, South Carolina, United States. He began his career playing with soul jazz ensembles, first in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1959 to 1964, and then in the Columbus, Ohio, area from 1964 to 1967. He recorded with organist Hank Marr in 1964 (released 1967). After moving to New York in 1971, Ulmer played with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Joe Henderson, Paul Bley, Rashied Ali, and Larry Young. In the early 1970s, Ulmer joined Ornette Coleman; he was the first electric guitarist to record and tour extensively with Coleman. He has credited Coleman as a major influence. Coleman's reliance on electric guitar in his fusion-oriented recordings owes a debt to Ulmer. His app ...
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Charles Burnham (musician)
Charles Burnham (born 1950; also known as Charlie Burnham) is an American violinist and composer. He has a unique highly imaginative style that crosses genres, including bluegrass, delta punk, free jazz, blues, classical and chamber jazz. He often performs with a wah-wah pedal. He initially became renowned for his work on James "Blood" Ulmer's Odyssey album. The musicians on that album later performed and recorded as Odyssey the Band, sometimes known as The Odyssey Band. He was also a member of the String Trio of New York, and currently plays in the 52nd Street Blues Project, Hidden City, We Free StRings, Improvising Chamber Ensemble and the Kropotkins. Session work He has played on recordings by Living Colour, Susie Ibarra, Cassandra Wilson, Steven Bernstein, Queen Esther, Peter Apfelbaum, Henry Threadgill, Ted Daniel, Medeski Martin & Wood, The Woes, Hem, Elysian Fields, Adam Rudolph, Jonah Smith, The Heavy Circles, Mario Pavone, Joan As Police Woman, Rick Moran ...
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Hank Marr (musician)
Hank Marr (30 January 1927 – 16 March 2004) was a jazz musician known for his work on the Hammond B-3 organ. Career Natives of Columbus, Ohio, Hank Marr and tenor saxophonist Rusty Bryant co-led a group that toured for several years, beginning in 1958. Marr later led a group that featured James Blood Ulmer. Ulmer first recorded professionally with Marr in 1967–1968; they had previously toured in 1966–1967. Guitarists Freddie King (1961–1962) and Wilbert Longmire (1963–1964) also did recordings with Marr. In the late 1960s, Marr performed in a duo with guitarist Floyd Smith in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Marr had two minor hit singles, "The Greasy Spoon" (U.S. No. 101, 1964) and "Silver Spoon" (U.S. No. 134, 1965). Joel Whitburn, ''Top Pop Singles''. 12th edn, p. 618. Discography Albums * ''Teentime...Latest Dance Steps'' (King, 1963) -with Rusty Bryant, Cal Collins * ''Live at the Club 502'' (King, 1964) -with Rusty Bryant, Wilbert Longmire * ''On and Off Sta ...
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Odyssey (James Blood Ulmer Album)
''Odyssey'' is an album by American guitarist James Blood Ulmer, recorded and released in 1983 on the Columbia label.James "Blood" Ulmer discography
accessed July 12, 2010
It was Ulmer's final of three albums recorded for a major label. The musicians on the album later re-united as The Odyssey Band and Odyssey The Band.


Reception

The review by Steve Huey stated that "''Odyssey'' stands as James Blood Ulmer's signature masterpiece, the purest and most accessible showcase for his bold, genre-clashing guitar vision... All the pieces come together to produce not only Ulmer's finest album, but a certified classic of the modern jazz avant-garde." ...
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Black Rock (James Blood Ulmer Album)
''Black Rock'' is an album by American guitarist James Blood Ulmer recorded in 1982 and released on the Columbia label.James Blood Ulmer discography
accessed July 12, 2010
It was Ulmer's second of three albums recorded for a major label.


Reception

The review by Thom Jurek awarded the album 4½ stars, and states, "''Black Rock'' is among Blood's strongest records. As tough as '''' and the Music Revelation Ensemble's ''No Wave'', yet more accessible than either. This is a fitting in ...
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Free Lancing
''Free Lancing'' is an album by American guitarist James Blood Ulmer recorded in 1981 and released on the Columbia label.James Blood Ulmer discography
accessed January 12, 2018
It was Ulmer's first of three albums recorded for a major label.


Reception

The review by Brian Olewnick awarded the album 4 stars, and states, "it's Ulmer's stinging guitar lines — rough-hewn, corrosive, and scrabbling — throughout this recording that make it one of his finest".Olewnick, B. accessed July 9, 2010
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Illusions (Arthur Blythe Album)
''Illusions'' is jazz saxophonist Arthur Blythe's third album for the Columbia label, recorded in New York City in 1980. Reception From contemporary reviews, Robert Palmer placed the album at fifth place in his best of 1980 list for the ''New York Times'', proclaiming Blythe to be a "formidable alto saxophonist" and that the funk tunes on the album "proved that substantial yet danceable jazz isn't an impossible dream." From retrospective reviews, Scott Yanow of AllMusic states that "the distinctive alto of Blythe is heard in top form on six of his unusual originals ... It's recommended."Yanow, S. AllMusic Reviewaccessed July 19, 2010 Track listing :''All compositions by Arthur Blythe'' # "Bush Baby" - 6:28 # "Miss Nancy" - 7:24 # "Illusions" - 4:10 # "My Son Ra" - 5:59 # "Carespin' With Mamie" - 7:04 # "As of Yet" - 5:04 :*Recorded at CBS Recording Studios, New York in April & May 1980. Personnel * Arthur Blythe - alto saxophone * Abdul Wadud - cello (tracks 1, ...
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Lenox Avenue Breakdown
''Lenox Avenue Breakdown'' is an album by jazz saxophonist Arthur Blythe. It was released by Columbia Records in 1979 and reissued by Koch Jazz in 1998. The album reached No. 35 on the ''Billboard'' Jazz Albums chart in 1979. Reception ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz'' included ''Lenox Avenue Breakdown'' in its "Core Collection," and assigned its "crown" accolade to the album, along with a four-star rating (of a possible four stars). ''Penguin'' editors Richard Cook and Brian Morton called the album "one of the lost masterpieces of modern jazz," owing to its long period of unavailability before the 1998 CD release. Cook and Morton noted that " obStewart's long tuba solo on the title-piece is one of the few genuinely important tuba statements in jazz, a nimble sermon that promises storms and sunshine." Thom Jurek, writing for AllMusic, notes that "this group lays like a band that had been together for years, not the weeklong period it took them to rehearse and create one of B ...
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Arthur Blythe
Arthur Murray Blythe (May 7, 1940 – March 27, 2017) was an American jazz alto saxophonist and composer. He was described by critic Chris Kelsey as displaying "one of the most easily recognizable alto sax sounds in jazz, big and round, with a fast, wide vibrato and an aggressive, precise manner of phrasing" and furthermore as straddling the avant garde and traditionalist jazz, often with bands featuring unusual instrumentation. Biography Born in Los Angeles, Blythe lived in San Diego, returning to Los Angeles when he was 19 years old. He took up the alto saxophone at the age of nine, playing R&B until his mid-teens when he discovered jazz. In the mid-1960s, Blythe was part of the Underground Musicians and Artists Association (UGMAA), founded by Horace Tapscott, on whose 1969 '' The Giant Is Awakened'' he made his recording debut. After moving to New York in the mid-1970s, Blythe worked as a security guard before being offered a place as sideman for Chico Hamilton (1975–77 ...
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Jazz Fusion
Jazz fusion (also known as fusion and progressive jazz) is a music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, amplifiers, and keyboards that were popular in rock and roll started to be used by jazz musicians, particularly those who had grown up listening to rock and roll. Jazz fusion arrangements vary in complexity. Some employ groove-based vamps fixed to a single key or a single chord with a simple, repeated melody. Others use elaborate chord progressions, unconventional time signatures, or melodies with counter-melodies. These arrangements, whether simple or complex, typically include improvised sections that can vary in length, much like in other forms of jazz. As with jazz, jazz fusion can employ brass and woodwind instruments such as trumpet and saxophone, but other instruments often substitute for these. A jazz fusion band is less likely to use piano and do ...
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Ornette Coleman
Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman (March 9, 1930 – June 11, 2015) was an American jazz saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter, and composer known as a principal founder of the free jazz genre, a term derived from his 1960 album '' Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation''. His pioneering performances often abandoned the chordal and harmony-based structure found in bebop, instead emphasizing a jarring and avant-garde approach to improvisation. AllMusic called him "one of the most important (and controversial) innovators of the jazz avant-garde". Born in Fort Worth, Texas, Coleman began his musical career playing in local R&B and bebop groups, and eventually formed his own group in Los Angeles featuring members such as Ed Blackwell, Don Cherry, Charlie Haden, and Billy Higgins. In 1959, he released the controversial album ''The Shape of Jazz to Come'' and began a long residency at the Five Spot jazz club in New York City. His 1960 album ''Free Jazz'' would profoundly influence the ...
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Larry Young (musician)
Larry Young (also known as Khalid Yasin ''Abdul Aziz October 7, 1940 – March 30, 1978) was an American jazz organist and occasional pianist. Young's early work was strongly influenced by the soul jazz of Jimmy Smith, but he later pioneered a more experimental, modal approach to the Hammond B-3. Biography Born and raised in Newark, New Jersey, United States, Young attended Newark Arts High School, where he began performing with a vocal group and a jazz band. Young played with various R&B bands in the 1950s, before gaining jazz experience with Jimmy Forrest, Lou Donaldson, Kenny Dorham, Hank Mobley and Tommy Turrentine. Recording as a leader for Prestige from 1960, Young made a number of soul jazz discs, '' Testifying'', '' Young Blues'' and '' Groove Street''. When Young signed with Blue Note around 1964, his music began to show the marked influence of John Coltrane. In this period, he produced his most enduring work. He recorded several times as part of a trio with guita ...
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Rashied Ali
Rashied Ali, born Robert Patterson (July 1, 1933 – August 12, 2009) was an American free jazz and avant-garde drummer best known for playing with John Coltrane in the last years of Coltrane's life. Biography Early life Patterson was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His family was musical; his mother sang with Jimmie Lunceford. His brother, Muhammad Ali, is also a drummer, who played with Albert Ayler. Ali, his brother, and his father converted to Islam. Starting off as a pianist he eventually took up the drums, via trumpet and trombone. He joined the United States Army and played with military bands during the Korean War. After his military service, he returned home and studied with Philly Joe Jones, then toured with Sonny Rollins. Career Ali moved to New York in 1963 and worked in groups with Bill Dixon and Paul Bley. He was scheduled to be the second drummer alongside Elvin Jones on John Coltrane's free jazz album '' Ascension'', but he dropped out just befo ...
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