James Blood Ulmer: Solo Performance Set, Followed By A Second Set Feat. Dave Bryant, Neil Leonard, Frederick Williams, James Kamal Jones. at Harvard-Epworth United Methodist Church

For November, “Third Thursdays” monthly harmolodic jazz series features James Blood Ulmer, in a solo performance for the evening’s first set, followed by a set performed by Dave Bryant (“Third Thursdays” host/keys), Neil Leonard (sax), Frederick Williams (bass), and James Kamal Jones (drums).

James Blood Ulmer is among the most distinctive and influential electric guitarists who has made a career built on left turns and reinvention. One of the most expressive guitarists on the planet, Blood is one of the undisputed keepers of the flame for the “harmolodic movement” created by Ornette Coleman. He takes those fundamentals and applies them at will to any genre he pursues, from rootsy Americana, rock, hyper funk, outside electric, Hendrix-inspired cosmic blues. Blood’s music is rooted in the blues. And yet, he flirts with it....

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For November, “Third Thursdays” monthly harmolodic jazz series features James Blood Ulmer, in a solo performance for the evening’s first set, followed by a set performed by Dave Bryant (“Third Thursdays” host/keys), Neil Leonard (sax), Frederick Williams (bass), and James Kamal Jones (drums).

James Blood Ulmer is among the most distinctive and influential electric guitarists who has made a career built on left turns and reinvention. One of the most expressive guitarists on the planet, Blood is one of the undisputed keepers of the flame for the “harmolodic movement” created by Ornette Coleman. He takes those fundamentals and applies them at will to any genre he pursues, from rootsy Americana, rock, hyper funk, outside electric, Hendrix-inspired cosmic blues. Blood’s music is rooted in the blues. And yet, he flirts with it.

Improvising keyboardist Dave Bryant, host of the monthly “Third Thursdays” harmolodic jazz series, is curating his November’s concert to feature the solo performance of special guest James Blood Ulmer, one of Ornette Coleman’s most important early co-conceptualists. The second half of the evening will include a set performed by Bryant along with his fellow Ornette Coleman collaborators Frederick Williams (bass) and James Kamal Jones (drums), joined by Neil Leonard (saxophone).

James Blood Ulmer was recently included in Rolling Stone‘s “The 250 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” list (dated: 10/13/2023):
“First playing soul jazz, then as the bee-like foil to free jazz icon Ornette Coleman’s melodic runs, James Blood Ulmer smashed together generations of blues, funk, and jazz guitar into glistening sheets, skronky riffs, and jittery solos. On albums such as Tales of Captain Black and Odyssey, his stinging tone proved a massive influence on the Seventies and Eighties downtown New York experimental scene, touching everyone from Vernon Reid (who produced Ulmer’s excellent 2000s blues records) to no-wave bands like DNA and Mars. As Reid himself put it, “James Blood Ulmer is fully aware, theoretically and idiomatically — he’s just never been constrained by those concerns. He is a rock. He is unapologetically himself. He is the blues. Itself. Not its rules.”

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