Saturday, June 20, 2026

FASCIST AMERICA 2026: The Widespread and Highly Coordinated Assaults And Targeted Perversions Of Our Human, Constitutional, and Civil Rights Are the Defining Ideological, Political, Economic, Cultural, Moral, Ethical and Philosophical Foundations Of the Raging U.S. Fascist Regime Led, Engineered, and Administered Via Endless Lies, Relentless Government Propaganda, Institutional Coercion, and State Sanctioned Violence by The Massive Criminality and Sadistic Lawlessness Sponsored, Represented, Carried Out, and Endorsed by Donald Trump, the GOP, ICE, 21st Century Technocracy, the Billionaire Class, and MAGA (among many other deeply malevolent and extremely well financed forces in both the domestic and foreign spheres of American civil and political society)

An honest 250th birthday

Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. on how anniversaries can be used to disremember -- or come into the truth of who we've been and still are

The Ink

June 2, 2026

What exactly is the country being celebrated for 250 years of independence this July?

What is it really about? What is its essential character? Or should we stop asking such annoying questions and just do fireworks?

This is the challenge Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., the Princeton University professor and author, poses to us with his new book, “America, U.S.A.” What does it mean to celebrate America, he asks, at a moment of what he calls a “second lost cause,” a moment of backsliding away from everything Americans profess to believe?

Has America, Glaude asks, become a country of “freedom snatchers,” rather than “freedom seekers”?

We sat down with him to discuss that and other questions. Some of what we discussed:

How big anniversaries like the coming Semiquincentennial are sometimes used to make us disremember more than remember
 
How 2026 resembles a national anniversary we celebrated in 1926, which Glaude calls “the decade of the Ku Klux Klan”
 
Why, despite the wave of white grievance and hatred, and the demolition of legislation like the Voting Rights Act, in the words of one of the professor’s students, “We should live by love but carry the anger.”


Why Glaude thinks of teaching as a subversive activity

Note: You might want to listen to this book on audio, to hear the original music commissioned just for Glaude text.

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Friday, June 19, 2026

FASCISM 2026: How And Why White Supremacy As Doctrine and Practice in Direct Collaboration and Collusion With Global Capitalism Is The Primary Foundation and Structural identity of Fascism in not only the United States But the World

MAGA’s ‘Mythical White America’ Is Jeopardizing the World

Zeteo

June 15, 2026

VIDEO: 
 
With America’s 250th anniversary approaching, author and Princeton University professor Eddie Glaude Jr. is using the occasion as a lens to examine the country’s past. His latest book, ‘America, U.S.A: How Race Shadows the Nation’s Anniversaries’ explores how American myth-making has excluded Black Americans. “There is something about the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the nation that has these haunting echoes,” Glaude tells Mehdi. “We’ve never really removed the tumor that causes so much of the illness of American life.” Glaude’s book takes readers through the U.S.’s biggest anniversaries, highlighting the contradictions behind each national celebration. In his conversation with Mehdi, he explains why confronting these tensions in American history, while never easy, is vital for a healthy democracy. 
 
This conversation was published on zeteo.com last week. If you want early, exclusive access to this kind of independent, unfiltered journalism — subscribe to our Substack here: https://zeteo.com/subscribe.

Click here to buy a copy of Glaude’s book, ‘America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation’s Anniversaries’:

https://bookshop.org/p/books/america-

And if you’ve already read it, feel free to share your review of the book in the comments below! Looking for more book recommendations?

Visit the Zeteo book club here for inspiration:

https://zeteo.com/t/book-club 

CHAPTERS:

00:00 Intro
02:15 America’s 250th anniversary
05:30 White Supremacy
07:42 America after Trump
11:11 Are Dems meeting the moment?
14:40 Biden’s checkered legacy
17:39 Trump’s attacks on diversity
19:32 Will the US survive Trump? 

Subscribe to Zeteo to support independent and unfiltered journalism: 
As the U.S. turns 250, this historian has blunt advice: 'America has to grow up'

June 15, 2026

Heard on Fresh Air

FA

Tonya Mosley

36-Minute Listen

Transcript


Eddie Glaude Jr. speaks in Philadelphia on March 1, 2023. Lisa Lake/Getty Images

As the United States prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary, historian and Princeton professor Eddie Glaude Jr. says he's feeling rageful. He opens his new book, America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation's Anniversaries, bluntly, with the declaration: "I do not love America, and never have, especially now."

Glaude points to the Supreme Court's dismantling of the Voting Rights Act, and to redistricting efforts that threaten to limit Black representation in Congress.

"What I was trying to do with this book was kind of write some security underneath my feet. So that I could actually get this rage under control, to get my sadness, my melancholy under control," Glaude says.


History
America has a major birthday coming up — here's what to expect for the big 2-5-0

America, U.S.A. looks at the country through the lens of its previous anniversaries and centennials. Today, as in the past, Glaude says, "the divided soul of the nation is in full view." As the 250th anniversary approaches, he says it's past time for the country to acknowledge the ways it has failed to deliver on its founding principles:

"America has to grow up. It can no longer hide in its adolescence," he says. "America imagines itself at once as a beacon of freedom and as a white republic. And to hold those two things together ... deposits the kind of madness at the heart of the country."

Interview highlights
Penguin Random House

On starting his book with the sentence: "I do not love America"

I had written some version of the introduction and it didn't land. I thought I was holding something back. … And so I returned to that first paragraph, and suddenly this sentence just came on the page. And I got up and I started walking around my study and I was afraid of what this would mean if I left it there. And then something inside of my head just simply said, "But this is what you have to say. You have to begin here and then you can explain." So I left it.

On the significance of the country's anniversaries

Each of these moments, the country has to tell a story about itself. It has to tell a story about its founding. And so here we are in the 250th and look at the kinds of the contours of the story — just don't look at the UFC arena or the Great American Fair or the garden of statues of heroes. But they're going to tell a story [about] the saintliness of the founders, a story about the sacredness of this grand experiment.

On what patriotism means to him

Sometimes patriotism, to my ear, sounds like a rebel yell.

Eddie Glaude Jr.

Sometimes patriotism, to my ear, sounds like a rebel yell. Those people who embrace the flag, who wrap themselves up in the piety of the country, are often, more than not, folk who think I should be in my place, folk who are behind the assault on voting rights, folk who want to deny the specificity of the experiences that shape how I see this place. So usually when I hear a robust, visceral embrace of love of country, you know, my head goes on a swivel. Who sang it, and for what ends and for what purposes?

On a storybook version of America's founding he was told during a 2024 tour of Philadelphia's Congress Hall


Race
Slavery Wasn't 'Long Ago': A Writer Exposes The Disconnect In How We Tell History

[The guide was] walking us through the House and then the Senate, and he's telling us these stories and finally talks about the conflict. [He says] that they weren't divided according to party but, you know, region and whatnot. And [he] said the biggest conflict is that they came from the South and the North. And I was like, OK, here we go. We're going to start talking about slavery. And then he says they didn't know how to shake hands. That was the example of the conflict between the congresspersons, that one would bow [and the other would shake]. And I was like, that's it? And then I just saw ghosts. I saw ghosts all around Congress Hall. But it was an example for me of a startling example of the storybook version of the country.

Anna Bauman and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz and Meghan Sullivan adapted it for the web.

America 250

civil rights

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/nx-s1-5856348


Author Interviews

As the U.S. turns 250, this historian has blunt advice: 'America has to grow up'

June 15, 2026

36-Minute Listen

Transcript

TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Tonya Mosley, and my guest today is Eddie Glaude Jr. He's a professor at Princeton and a familiar voice on the country's hardest conversations about race and democracy. He's the author of "Begin Again," lessons from the late James Baldwin, and "We Are The Leaders We've Been Looking For." Those books look clearly at this country's failures but still held onto something hopeful. But his latest book set sentimentality aside. It's called "America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows The Nation's Anniversaries." In it, Glaude takes us to the country's big birthdays - 1876, 1926, 1976, and now the 250th - and shows us the same ritual each time.

The nation throws itself a party and quietly edits out the parts of the story it cannot bear to face. He goes back to 1876, the centennial, with Frederick Douglass watching the promise of emancipation come undone. And he argues that what happened then is happening again now. It's a book written in grief and rage - and underneath both, a stubborn kind of love of country. We spoke earlier this month in Seattle on stage at the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival, a daylong gathering of journalists and thinkers hosted by Seattle's public media station. Here's our conversation.

(APPLAUSE)

MOSLEY: I am so honored to be in conversation with you for so many reasons. I've had the pleasure of talking with you many times, our first time, though, in person with each other. And I think a great way to start is to actually have you read a passage from the book. Let's start with the very first page.

EDDIE GLAUDE JR: Sure. But before I started reading, I want to just say how honored I am to be in conversation with you. To have an opportunity to talk about this book in this moment with you is so meaningful to me. So here it is.

(Reading) Bitterness at the bottom of the cup. I do not love America and never have, especially now. It seems to me misplaced or dangerous to love something so abstract and so morally dubious. Love is most often felt and experienced close to the ground, in the life lived in a particular place in time and in memories that take up resonance in the heart. I suspect love of country is shorthand for the heartfelt relationships and experiences that make us who we are, things that happen in the place we call home, no matter how complicated that place may be.

(Reading) James Baldwin was right. Whoever is part of whatever civilization helplessly loves some aspects of it and some of the people in it. And I suppose that is why, in part, we are willing to risk our lives in defense of this place and of what it might become. But in America, those feelings and experiences have always been stained by the ugliness of what white people believe about color, that somehow or in some inscrutable way, the color of one's skin determines your value. You end up spending much of your life trying to prove to others and to yourself, not because you are obsessed with white people, but because you want to live, that you are not an N-word.

(Reading) Some Americans may believe that this view is a relic of a past that we have long left behind. After all, they might say, we elected a Black president and vice president. Look how far we've come. Stop complaining, I hear them say. You teach at Princeton University. You are not a victim. But I speak from the experience of a life lived in this country, and I trust what I know, what I've seen and what now sits in the pit of my stomach.

(APPLAUSE)

MOSLEY: When did that sentence - I do not love America - become true to you? When did you consciously realize that that was a truth for you?

GLAUDE: I had written some version of the introduction. And it didn't land. But I was holding something back. And so, you know, writing is mostly about revision. And so I returned to that first paragraph, and suddenly this sentence just came on the page. And I got up and I started walking around my study. And I was afraid of what this would mean if I left it there, and then almost as if, you know, something inside of my head just simply said, but this is what you have to say. You have to begin here, and then you can explain it. So I left it there. And I decided, you know, in this time, you have to be courageous and vulnerable and daring. And I...

MOSLEY: And truthful.

GLAUDE: Yeah, exactly.

MOSLEY: One of the things that struck me from the very beginning of this book was that I realized I wasn't reading from the same man who wrote "Begin Again," because in "Begin Again, which is a previous book of yours, you use James Baldwin's work to kind of beat back despair. And in this book in particular, I felt that optimism of a truth teller, of a freedom fighter, it was gone.

GLAUDE: Yeah. Yeah.

MOSLEY: Am I right in that feeling? In the same way that Langston Hughes, we felt in his later writings and in James Baldwin.

GLAUDE: Yeah. So in so many ways, I'm arguing with Jimmy. You know, in "Notes Of A Native Son," Baldwin says, you know, I love my country more than anything. And because of that love, I reserve the right to criticize it relentlessly, to paraphrase him. I never begin there. I didn't begin there. Maybe it's because I'm from Mississippi, you know?

MOSLEY: Mm hmm.

GLAUDE: But I'm rageful. There are moments when I'm battling depression because the country has done this again. At the end of "Begin Again," I said, well, you know, we can - we have to make a choice, right? Will we do this or that? And we have a choice to put this moment behind us, and look what we did. And now people have to raise their children in the midst of this. They've gutted the Voting Rights Act. They're redrawing districts. We're in the midst of what could very well be described as a Second Redemption, a Second Lost Cause. And, you know, the last sentence of the book speaks that emotion. And so what I was trying to do with this book was kind of write some security underneath my feet - right? - so that I could actually get this rage under control, to get my sadness, my melancholia under control.

MOSLEY: Why anniversaries as a way to look at this country's relationship with race? You could have chosen court cases. You could have chosen lots of different ways. What is it about our nation's anniversaries that allow us to see the problem so clearly?

GLAUDE: So at each of these moments, the country has to tell a story about itself. It has to tell a story about its founding. And so here we are in the 250th, and look at the kinds of - the contours of the story. Just don't look at the UFC arena.

(LAUGHTER)

GLAUDE: Or the Great American Fair, or the garden of statues of heroes. But they're going to tell a story. It's going to be a particular story. We're the greatest nation in the history of the world. It's going to be a story about the - you know, the saintliness of the founders, a story about the sacredness of this grand experiment. In each of these anniversaries, the nation has to tell a story about itself about its founding. And in each of these moments, Tonya, the country is struggling and grappling with its contradiction. In each of these moments, the divided soul of the nation is in full view. All right, Du Bois in 1903 wrote "The Souls Of Black Folk." And in "The Souls Of Black Folk," he says that Black folks see themselves through the eyes of those who despise them. This is what he called double consciousness.

But I believe that double consciousness is actually a consequence of the double consciousness of the nation, that America imagines itself at once as a beacon of freedom and as a White republic. And to hold those two things together with - you can't, really, without contradiction. And it deposits a kind of madness at the heart of the country. And we see it evidenced every single milestone anniversary, 1876, 1926, 1976 and by God, 250 years later, 2026.

MOSLEY: If you're just joining us, we're listening to the conversation I had onstage with Eddie Glaude Jr. at the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival in Seattle. Glaude's new book is "America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows The Nation's Anniversaries." More of our conversation after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF CUONG VU AND PAT METHENY'S "SEEDS OF DOUBT")

MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my conversation with Eddie Glaude Jr., recorded at the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival in Seattle. Glaude is the James S McDonald, distinguished University professor of African American Studies at Princeton University. His new book is "America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows The Nation's Anniversaries."

I want to talk with you in particular about two moments, 1926, 1976. But I'm very curious about the title, "America," comma, "U.S.A." Why both of those in the title?

GLAUDE: Yeah. You know, usually it's not a comma. It's a hyphen.

MOSLEY: Yes.

GLAUDE: The Italian American, the Irish American, you know, the Black American, African American. The hyphen gives us a sense of the kind of the idea of America best represented by Ellis Island, yes? We need to remind the Trump administration about Ellis Island, right?

(LAUGHTER)

GLAUDE: But the comma signals a break, not connection. And so, "America, U.S.A." actually reflects the divided soul of the country. And so, part of what I'm doing is signifying on these attempts to tell the story of America and trying to capture in the title, by way of the comma, the divided soul, the double consciousness that haunts this place.

MOSLEY: And you're talking about the anniversaries and all of the pomp and circumstance. As I'm reading your book, don't laugh at this, but that song, "God Bless The USA" - proud to be an American because at least I know I'm free. And as I'm reading the words in your book, for the first time, those words, at least I know I'm free, kept coming back up for me. And I wonder, what's your relationship to patriotism overall, and to that idea of us holding such reverence and such pride in this myth and this idea of freedom being something that could be bestowed upon us?

GLAUDE: Yeah. Patriotism. You know, the first sentence, what it's trying to do is hold off idolatry, the idolatry of the state, right? Something so morally dubious and so abstract, right? And sometimes - and I'll say this, and I wonder what you think about this, but sometimes patriotism to my ear sounds like a rebel yell.

MOSLEY: Say more.

GLAUDE: Those people who embrace the flag, who wrap themselves up in the piety of the country are often more than not folk who think I should be in my place, folk who are behind the assault on voting rights, folk who want to deny the specificity of the experience that shape how I see this place. So usually, when I hear a robust, visceral embrace of love of country, you know, my head goes on a swivel. Who's saying it and for what ends and for what purposes, you see? We've always served as a kind of counter to the myth, to the illusion that this place is a beacon of freedom.

MOSLEY: Us meaning Black folks?

GLAUDE: Yes. Yes. John - just think about John Adams. This is an apocryphal story. But John Adams supposedly said to King George, we will not be your Negroes. At the very moment in which he's giving voice to a notion of freedom, it's based on an intimate understanding of unfreedom - us. In the early days of July Fourth, if we showed up to the July Fourth celebrations, like the July days of 1834 in New York, we would literally be physically attacked because our bodies represented the contradiction of what was being said.

We have a counter calendar, what I call a counter, alternative, commemorative calendar around freedom. While the nation is celebrating itself as the embodiment of freedom, we are celebrating January 1. Why? Because January 1, 1808, was the day that they ended the transatlantic slave trade. We're celebrating in August, West Indian Emancipation Day. Why? Because it's the end of slavery.

We celebrate the most important of all of those days in the early 19th century, is July 5. Douglass' famous July 5, 1852, oration stands in the tradition. Why July 5? It's the abolition of slavery in the state of New York. Juneteenth stands in that tradition, where we're giving voice to a notion of freedom over and against a country that embraces the idea of freedom but doesn't quite live it in practice.

MOSLEY: I want to spend some real time on two of the anniversaries that sit on top of each other. So 1876 and 1976. So 1876 is where you note that racial justice starts to get treated as philanthropy.

GLAUDE: Yeah.

MOSLEY: It's a gift that white people can extend and also withdraw, rather than something that is owed. Can you talk more about that and why this reframe of understanding this is so important as we read through your book and your ideas?

GLAUDE: Yeah. Well, I'm trying to figure out this cycle. Why is it that we're always returning to this? What's going on? And one of the ways I've resolved it is that - or I haven't resolved the cycle - of the way in which I describe it is, OK, if America imagines itself as a beacon of freedom and as a white republic and if you can't hold those things without contradiction, how do you finesse it? Well, you finesse it by assuming that white people possess freedom to give and to take away. Oh, let me be clear now, before people get uncomfortable. When I say white people, I'm talking at a certain level of generality. This is my reading of James Baldwin. Baldwin will say, I happen to love - and I say this - I happen to love a lot of people who happen to be white, and then there are white people.

(LAUGHTER)

GLAUDE: The point is is that we're all - we all bear the burden of racialization. We're all socialized in this way in which these categories matter to how we see ourselves and understand ourselves, right? So those people believe that they possess freedom to give and to take away. And so what we see is antislavery movement, right? Folk are fighting against slavery and they are arguing that this contradicts their commitment to principles of equality and liberty and democracy and the like. And then, once the Civil War amendments are passed, particularly the one that ends slavery - the 13th Amendment - what do we get? This debate about whether or not these folk can bear the burden and responsibility of citizenship. So you see folk who were once - right? - antislavery suddenly become - right? - folk who are arguing against extending citizenship to Black folk.

So 1876 is this moment. Douglass is - Frederick Douglass is...

MOSLEY: Frederick Douglass.

GLAUDE: ...Grappling with this. He's an example of these freedom snatchers - these people who believe that they can give freedom and to take away. He was born in slavery. He - you know, he escaped. He witnessed Lincoln sign the Emancipation Proclamation, the ratification of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, and he lived long enough to see Jim Crow. He called these folk the apostles of forgetfulness, right? And then he would say - and he said in 1875 - I don't want your alms, I want justice. He's skeptical of people who want to do something for us as opposed to with us, huh?

And so 1876 is this extraordinary moment, Tonya, when the country engages, for the first time after the carnage of the Civil War, in a national remembrance of its founding and it engages in this horrific act, at scale, of disremembering.

Frederick Douglass was actually invited to be on the dais with President Grant. He's trying to get in. This is in Philadelphia. Not in Philadelphia, Mississippi, but Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

(LAUGHTER)

MOSLEY: Yes.

GLAUDE: He's trying to get in. He shows the Philadelphia police officer his ticket, which puts him on the dais. The officer says, there's no way an N-word should be on the dais with President Grant. He would not allow him in. If it wasn't for a senator who sees him - Senator Conkling, I believe - who sees him and then escorts him in, Frederick Douglass would not have been able to even enter the exposition. Then they sit him on the stage - the most famous orator in the United States at the time. They sit him on the stage and he cannot say a word. He's just there, silent. Silent.

So there's this disremembering that's happening as the country barrels towards the end of the 19th century with the violence of these coups that are taking place - political coups that are taking place in Mississippi and Alabama and Georgia in the - against the backdrop of the horror that will leave over 53,000 Black people dead by the end of the 19th century. The country tells itself a story about the grandness of the American project. My, my, my.

MOSLEY: My guest is Princeton professor Eddie Glaude Jr. To accompany his new book, Glaude worked with classical composer Joel Thompson to create music to capture what Glaude sees as the spirit of the nation. Here's pianist Leah Claiborne performing the piece called "And Blue."

(SOUNDBITE OF JOEL THOMPSON'S "AND BLUE")

MOSLEY: That was Leah Claiborne performing "And Blue." More of our conversation with scholar Eddie Glaude Jr. after a break. I'm Tonya Mosley, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN COLTRANE'S "UNTITLED ORIGINAL")

MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Tonya Mosley. Let's get back to my conversation with scholar Eddie Glaude Jr., professor at Princeton University and a familiar voice on the country's hardest conversations about race and democracy. This latest book, "America, U.S.A.," takes us through the country's big birthdays from the centennial in 1876 to now, 2026, as we approach the 250th, revealing how the ritual is the same each time. The nation throws itself a party and quietly edits out the parts of the story it cannot bear to face. It's a book written in grief and rage and, underneath both, a stubborn kind of love of country. Glaude is also the author of several other books, including "Begin Again" and "We Are The Leaders We've Been Looking For." We spoke earlier this month in Seattle onstage at the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival, a daylong gathering of journalists and thinkers hosted by Seattle's public media station.

I'm thinking about 2020, when we all seemed to be coming to this same realization in the same way that we found during Reconstruction, where, oh, we understand the ills. We want to right the wrongs. And the white allies are in our corner, and they believe us, and they're speaking truth to power as well. And then something happens. Like, the idea of it being a philanthropic effort, this idea that you can put it on the shelf, and then you can take it off the shelf when it comes to racial equality.

GLAUDE: Yeah. Yeah. Sentimentality. At the heart of this idea that certain people think that they possess freedom to give and to take away is the cycle of sentimentality and rage. You cry your crocodile tears. I remember writing this passage, trying to figure it out just five years ago, six years ago. We were in the midst of a racial reckoning. I was crying on national television about George Floyd and the like. And in the blink of an eye, we're here. In the blink of an eye. And the only thing I could conclude is that people were lying. You weren't telling the truth. Or you didn't have anywhere else to land. And you just returned back, returned to the status quo.

And so I was trying to describe it in a way, drawing on Baldwin's notion of sentimentality - and Oscar Wilde and others, right? That sentimentality is really just, you know, about your own individual feelings. Baldwin says it's the mask of cruelty, right? You cry your crocodile tears for us. Oh, we want to do this for you. We're going to make sure. We're going to resolve - we're going to absolve ourselves of our sins by actually engaging in this effort. We're going to tell the truth about what we've done.

And then when the people who bear the brunt of what we've done continue to ask for justice, then the question becomes, what else do you want? We've given you enough. Overreach. How much more are you going to ask? And as soon as you hear those questions, we're on the cusp of the backlash, the rage. And here we are, because sentimentality carries with it rage. Uncle Tom - you know who's the flip side of Uncle Tom? Nat Turner.

MOSLEY: Yes. Yes.

GLAUDE: Same side of the same coin in our imaginations.

MOSLEY: Yes.

GLAUDE: This - I'm thinking we're being too hard. Y'all all right?

UNIDENTIFIED AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Yes.

(LAUGHTER)

GLAUDE: You sure? I'm just checking on you.

MOSLEY: This is Seattle, OK?

GLAUDE: OK, I'm just checking on them.

MOSLEY: This is not - we can go there. We can go there with Seattleites.

(APPLAUSE)

GLAUDE: I'm just checking on them. Yeah.

MOSLEY: I want to go back to Frederick Douglass, though, 1876. It's the centennial, as you said. It's the nation's hundredth birthday. He is turned away initially. And...

GLAUDE: Yeah. Yeah.

MOSLEY: ...He is the most famous Black man in America at the time. He's watching it all collapse around him. Take me, in particular, though, to July 5.

GLAUDE: Yeah.

MOSLEY: 1875. What was he contending with as he's preparing to speak?

GLAUDE: Yeah. And, you know, usually we talk about July 5, 1852, when he delivers that famous July 5 address in Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York. But in 1875, the old man has to figure out what he's going to say to the country, what he's going to say to these people in Metropolitan Church.

And he knew exactly what was going to happen come 1876. They would tell the story of the grandness of the American project. And it so mirrors our day. But here's that moment. Douglass says, and I always get choked up when I say it, we gained our freedom through the falling out of white men. Now we must brace ourselves - I'm paraphrasing - for what will happen now that they've reconciled. What - we must brace ourselves for what's to come.

MOSLEY: Yes.

GLAUDE: And it's a powerful speech, so much so that I try to pull it forward by the time I get to 2025...

MOSLEY: Yes.

GLAUDE: ...And I'm trying to write to the 2026 celebration, yeah.

MOSLEY: Yes. I was surprised to know that you went to school in Philadelphia, but you had never really taken tours of all of the landmarks. But you decide to take a tour of Independence Hall, what was it, like 2024?

GLAUDE: Yeah.

MOSLEY: So not that long ago.

GLAUDE: Yeah.

MOSLEY: And you're on this tour. And you're hearing this tour guide tell a story. And what's interesting about that time period is there was a lot of effort that went into making it diverse to kind of show a more perfect union. And you're noticing something very specific as you're going through this tour. What did you find?

GLAUDE: Well, it's the storybook version of America, right?

MOSLEY: Yes.

GLAUDE: And he's talking, he's taking us through the Congress Hall, right? And I've never been a tourist. I could go - I go overseas, and I stay in my hotel and read books. My wife hates it.

(LAUGHTER)

GLAUDE: So I'm in Philly. I never go to the Liberty Bell or any of that stuff. But here, I wanted to return to it. And he's telling a story. And he looks like he's cosplaying a kind of drill sergeant. He has his, you know, force outfit on.

MOSLEY: Yeah.

GLAUDE: And he's walking us through the House and then the Senate. And he's telling us these stories. And finally, he talks about the conflict between, that they weren't divided according to party but, you know, region and whatnot. He said, the biggest conflict is that they came from the South and the North. And I was like, OK, here we go.

(LAUGHTER)

GLAUDE: We're going to start talking about slavery.

MOSLEY: Lots to get into. Yes.

GLAUDE: Got it. And then he says, they didn't know how to shake hands. That was an example of the conflict...

MOSLEY: That was the conflict

GLAUDE: ...Between the congresspersons, that they didn't - one would bow and one would - and I was like, that's it? We're not going to - and so - and then I just saw ghosts. I saw ghosts all around Congress Hall. You know, pursed-lip ghosts, right? But it was an example for me - a startling example - of the storybook version of the country because in that very building, Congress decided by - only one person voted - decided to maintain the fugitive slave law.

MOSLEY: Yes.

GLAUDE: And Moses Gordon's story is located right in that moment.

MOSLEY: Talk a little bit about Moses Gordon.

GLAUDE: Moses Gordon was - you see how good she is?

(LAUGHTER)

GLAUDE: Moses Gordon was enslaved and manumitted in 1776, just three months after the signing of the Declaration of Independence in North Carolina. His slavemaster was Caleb Trueblood, a Quaker. And for two years, Moses Gordon lived as a free man. But the colony or the - you know, South - North Carolina had passed a statute saying that you could not manumit your slaves unless - for meritorious service unless they fought in the Revolutionary War. So Moses Gordon was captured two years later and sold back into slavery and he freedom dreamed. And then he escaped, and he escaped to Philadelphia, and for 10 years he lived as a free man.

But because of the fugitive slave clause in the Constitution and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, Moses Gordon was a thief because he stole himself. He belonged to the man to whom he was sold - Brigadier General William Skinner. And 10 years later, he was captured, put in shackles and was to be sent back to North Carolina. In the papers of John Parrish, a Quaker abolitionist in - at Haverford College, reside - are the manumission papers of Moses Gordon, and on the back, John Parrish wrote, instead of returning to slavery, Moses Gordon committed suicide. And that becomes a story of freedom snatching. He was freed, enslaved, escaped, captured, death. And it becomes a through line.

MOSLEY: We're listening to the conversation I had on stage with Eddie Glaude Jr. at the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival. Glaude's new book is "America, U.S.A." More of our conversation after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN COLTRANE QUARTET'S "OUT OF THIS WORLD")

MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my conversation with Eddie Glaude Jr. recorded at the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival. Glaude is the James S. McDonnell distinguished university professor of African American studies at Princeton University. His new book is "America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows The Nation's Anniversaries."

I want to take us now to 1976 'cause this is a time period where you and I are alive, we're coming of age. How old were you in 1976?

GLAUDE: Eight.

MOSLEY: You were 8 years old. Yeah. It's the bicentennial. And the question has shifted by then. This is the apex of white flight, the thick of desegregation fights.

GLAUDE: Yeah.

MOSLEY: And it's the first time, as you write in your book, that the nation is forced to kind of acknowledge Black history. But the question isn't whether Black freedom should be retracted. It's whether we should participate at all in the bicentennial.

GLAUDE: Yeah.

MOSLEY: Can you talk briefly about that?

GLAUDE: Sure. You know, it's just - I remember as - well, I have a photo. I have a vague memory of me being in red, white and blue pants...

(LAUGHTER)

MOSLEY: Yeah.

GLAUDE: ...How kitschy...

MOSLEY: Yeah.

GLAUDE: ...The '76 bicentennial celebration was - you know, from red, white and blue whoopee cushions to a range of things. But this is a celebration really of white ethnics in 1976. Remember, 1926, there is this real intense debate around immigration.

MOSLEY: And this is such an interesting point in history because this is where immigrants have the ability to become white.

GLAUDE: Yes.

MOSLEY: They have a choice to make.

GLAUDE: Yes.

MOSLEY: And as Black people, we sit very squarely in that because we're representative of what?

GLAUDE: The journey of the country itself, right?

MOSLEY: Yes.

GLAUDE: But, you know, 1926, you know, if you're from Italy, you're from Ireland, you're Jewish, you're from the S-hole (ph) countries of Europe - right? - the Klan can't stand them. They are as much against Irish Catholics - Catholicism in particular - as they are against Black people in the 1920s. But by 1976, their children are claiming the revolution as their own. Black folk are still arguing. We're in this moment of deep dissensus, Tonya - Watergate, Vietnam, Black Power, the Black student - SDS. There's all of this deep suspicion and skepticism about the country. And so the bicentennial is supposed to be this ritual that's going to bring us together over and against all of this conflict and discord that's defined the decade of the '60s and the early part of the '70s.

And is this the first year? 'Cause in - 1926 is the first time Negro History Week is celebrated - in 1926. 1976, Negro History Week becomes Black History Month. President Ford recognizes and acknowledges Negro History Week and then Black History Month. But there's this debate - 'cause Black folk are still struggling - ought we to celebrate this? Because what's happening is that instead of disappearing Black history, Black history is being absorbed into the story of America to affirm America's inherent goodness.

MOSLEY: So you write about the Reagan years.

GLAUDE: Yeah.

MOSLEY: This is the time period where we start talking about, like, color blindness.

GLAUDE: Yeah.

MOSLEY: It's assorting. It parts Black history to fit into this fairy tale, but it - but we're still kind of off to the side. It's not integrated into the full story.

GLAUDE: What so - makes this moment so crazy is that they don't even accept the redacted version of our story. So Reagan signs MLK holiday into law. Barack Obama becomes the kind of culmination of that, right? Even so much so you can tell the story of the March on Washington in such a way that, you know, affirms the possibility of American life. We lost our way with Black power. But no, no, no, no, this is what we're doing. The MAGA folk don't even want that to be a part of the story. But what we see in this moment is this absorption of Black history as an affirmation of the inherent goodness of the country. So our story is blunted. It doesn't provide a critique, right? Instead - right? - the country can tell our story and pat itself on the back. Look at you. Look at me.

MOSLEY: Exceptionalism.

GLAUDE: Look how far we've come.

MOSLEY: Yep.

GLAUDE: Look how decent we are, right? And then, in the blink of an eye, we find ourselves here.

MOSLEY: You call this book an elegy. It's pitched in the note of the blues. But I want to know, very quickly, why the blues is the right form of the story of America at this 250th anniversary? And I'm going to double this question as well to ask you what you will be doing on July Fourth or July 5?

GLAUDE: Why the blues and what am I going to be doing? America has to grow up. It can't - it can no longer hide in its adolescence. You know, when grown folk act like kids, they're monstrous, more often than not. And so it keeps telling itself this story that affirms its innocence. And what the blues does, the blues - right? - takes you to the heart of the problem. B.B. King's nobody loves you but my mother, and she can be jiving, too.

(LAUGHTER)

GLAUDE: It offers a tragic sense of the world, right? We don't have to be all angels, right? The devil and the angel is in us, so all we need to do is to look in the mirror. So we need to grow up, because if you don't grow up, you can bomb Iran and then tell somebody else to fix it. If you don't grow up, you can do all of this evil in these detention centers, in these black sites and not hold anybody responsible, right? You can become complicit with evil because you are by definition innocent. So the country has to sing the blues. And you know what? We've deposited it there since we got here.

MOSLEY: That's the thing you talk about, too, is, like, we aren't just a part of American history. We are interwoven into the very meaning of what this country is.

GLAUDE: It's on our tongue. It's in our food. We have made - your country? No, no. We, in the fullness of our diversity, make this place swing. So on July Fourth and July 5, we need to show the full diversity of America and claim the country as our own.

MOSLEY: Eddie Glaude, this has been a pleasure. Thank you so much for this conversation. When you say, I do not love this country, actually, this book is a love letter to America.

GLAUDE: Oh, you've got me.

MOSLEY: Yes. Thank you.

GLAUDE: Absolutely.

(APPLAUSE)

MOSLEY: Eddie Glaude Jr., author of "America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows The Nation's Anniversaries." After a short break, book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews some spring releases on her summer reading list. This is FRESH AIR.

Copyright © 2026 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.



June 18, 2026  
6.00pm – 7.30pm
Haymarket House

The Conviction Machine: Prosecutors, Politicians, and Police Violence in Chicago

Join Flint Taylor and Martha Biondi in a discussion about Flint Taylor’s latest release, The Conviction Machine: Prosecutors, Politicians, and Police Violence in Chicago.

Haymarket House
800 W Buena Ave.
Chicago, IL 60613 United States

RSVP

In December 1969, the FBI, the Chicago Police Department, and the office of States Attorney, led by rising political star Edward V. Hanrahan, conspired to assassinate Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, and then flagrantly covered up their misconduct. Thirteen years later, Jackie Wilson was tortured by the same police department and wrongfully incarcerated for thirty-six years.

Drawing on unique insights from his role as a leading opposition lawyer in both cases, award-winning author Flint Taylor details the vast political corruption uncovered in the Hampton case and the twists and turns of Wilson's forty-year effort to win his freedom.

With blistering clarity and righteous indignation, The Conviction Machine shines a penetrating light on the sordid world of prosecutorial misconduct and police violence.


**We ask that all in-person attendees wear masks in the event space during the program for the health and well-being of the speaker and other guests. We will have a reception afterwards with light refreshments and books available for purchase.**


--------------------------------------------------------------

Featured Speakers:

Martha Biondi is a professor of Black Studies and History at Northwestern and the award-winning author of We Are Internationalists: Prexy Nesbitt and the Fight for African Liberation.

As a law student, Flint Taylor was a founding member of the People’s Law Office and has been a partner of the PLO since 1972. As a student and lawyer, he has been dedicated to litigating against police violence and racism for more than fifty-four years. Among the landmark cases that Taylor has litigated are the Fred Hampton Black Panther case; the Greensboro, North Carolina case against the KKK, Nazis and Greensboro police; and a series of cases arising from a pattern and practice of police torture and cover-up by Chicago police Commander Jon Burge, former Cook County State’s Attorney and Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, and numerous other law enforcement officials. He has represented, and continues to represent, many wrongfully convicted persons, including police torture victims who have spent decades in prison and on death row. He has chronicled his work and that of the People’s Law Office in an award-winning historical memoir titled The Torture Machine.


--------------------------------------------------------------

This event is sponsored by Haymarket Books. While all of our events are freely available, we ask that those who are able make a solidarity donation in support of our important publishing and programming work.

Authors

Flint Taylor
Books



The Conviction Machine

by Flint Taylor

Paperback


IMPORTANT NEW BOOK


The Conviction Machine: Prosecutors, Politicians, and Police Violence in Chicago

by Flint Taylor

Haymarket books, 2026


[Publication date: May 19, 2026]


A captivating account of the most corrupt and blood-soaked chapters in Chicago law enforcement history

In December 1969, the FBI, the Chicago Police Department, and the office of States Attorney, led by rising political star Edward V. Hanrahan, conspired to assassinate Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, and then flagrantly covered up their misconduct. Thirteen years later, Jackie Wilson was tortured by the same police department and wrongfully incarcerated for thirty-six years.

Drawing on unique insights from his role as a leading opposition lawyer in both cases, award-winning author Flint Taylor details the vast political corruption uncovered in the Hampton case and the twists and turns of Wilson's forty-year effort to win his freedom.

With blistering clarity and righteous indignation, The Conviction Machine shines a penetrating light on the sordid world of prosecutorial misconduct and police violence.

REVIEWS:

"In this alarming exposé, civil rights attorney Taylor (The Torture Machine) reveals decades of government collusion to hide evidence of racist police violence in Chicago....The result is a painstaking, vital record of institutionalized corruption." ―Publisher's Weekly, Starred Review

"At last, Flint Taylor has given us an intimate, accurate, behind the scenes, forceful portrayal of the murderous machinations of the underbelly of American justice. I’ve been anxiously awaiting Flint’s exemplary work. Taylor vividly expresses the politically motivated, taxpayer-financed, and treacherous shenanigans of our nation’s political establishment and its enforcement apparatus; the American police departments, who area all too frequently in cahoots with the FBI, ICE, CIA, etc. Racism is its idealized engine, its raison d^etre.



The assassination of a young brilliant, gifted and courageous Black leader, Fred Hampton, was in a real sense its ultimate achievement. Fred’s assignation was not just a localized Chicago travesty of justice. It was the only officially sanctioned taxpayer-financed assassination of an American citizen for political reasons and political objectives by the U.S. Government in American history. And I was to be included in its deadly, deliberate undertaking! Fred’s assassination is the framework, the backdrop, the murderous modus operandi that still permeates our American law enforcement policy. Minneapolis and the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by America’s police operatives are our most recent reminders that much more remains to be done, and it must be done by the power of the people, common ordinary people.



Thank you, Flint Taylor, for "connecting the deadly dots". The "Conviction Machine" is a must-read for all freedom-loving, justice-seeking, and people-loving people. ―Bobby Rush, former U.S. Congressman and former Deputy Minister of defense of the Black Panther Party

"Most often, popular history tells the story of the predator and not the prey. This is not that story.My Brother, Beloved Atty. Flint Taylor is the David who slew the Goliathan: the CHICAGO POLITICAL/POLICE MACHINE. If you keep hope alive and stay in the fight, you will win; even in the face of the most daunting odds and intimidating foes, you will win. This book is your blueprint." ―The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, and his daughter, Santita Jackson, Producer/Host of the "KEEP HOPE ALIVE with REV. JESSE JACKSON and the SANTITA JACKSON Radio Shows.




“A masterful chronicle of Fred Hampton's murder and its aftermath, Taylor's insider account reveals the shocking depth of official conspiracy and cover-up while celebrating the tireless advocates who refused to let the truth die with Hampton.”
―Chesa Boudin




“Flint Taylor is a gift to Chicago and the nation. This rigorous, unsparing and brilliant dissection of decades-long racism, corruption, and lies by Chicago law enforcement, prosecutors, and judges should be required reading in law schools nationwide. We can only hope it triggers a long overdue reckoning with the true character of our criminal legal system.”
―Dr. Martha Biondi, author of The Black Revolution on Campus and We Are Internationalists: Prexy Nesbitt and the Fight for African Liberation



“Flint Taylor exposes the absurd, cowardly and racist machinations of Chicago officials, who permitted police to get away with torture rather than take a stand to stop them. The book reads like a novel by Kafka―except it’s true.”
―Ben Joravsky, journalist and host of The Ben Joravsky Show podcast


"The Conviction Machine is a scathing, jaw-dropping indictment of our criminal justice system and the conspiratorial ways prosecutors are complicit in police murder. Flint Taylor, a true legal legend, exposes the truth that we must acknowledge: the Chicago police tortured and murdered in cold blood, prosecutors were complicit, and this history must be retold to understand the battles we face today." ―Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve, PhD Author of Crook County and Crime Fictions

"Only a legal practitioner of Flint Taylor's skill and vast experience could have written this diagnosis of the routine cruelties and frequent absurdities produced by a criminal justice system built on a bedrock of unacknowledged racism. Drawing on two epic cases, he provides a devastating account of the interactions between police abuse, prosecutorial misconduct, and political machinations. A brilliant and necessary book." ―Jamie Kalven, Founder of the Invisible Institute, and Pulitzer Prize-winning Journalist



Praise for The Torture Machine

"If it was not for Flint Taylor I would still be languishing in prison. He brought hope to a hopeless place."
―Darrell Cannon, torture survivor

"It is impossible to fully understand the continuing challenges created by unjustifiable police violence against black and brown people without appreciating the historical backdrop that sustains this national crisis. Flint Taylor's powerful new book, informed by his decades as one of the most effective advocates addressing these issues, is a must-read."
―Bryan Stevenson, best-selling author of Just Mercy

"Taylor is a walking passcode to CPD misconduct. It was Taylor and his colleagues who unearthed the crimes committed by the “Midnight Crew,” a squad of racist cops who tortured blacks to extract their false confessions."
―Rolling Stone

"[A] searing memoir... essential reading for all who care about this country―past and future."
―Heather Ann Thompson, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Blood in the Water

"Incredible and devastating."

―Jeremy Scahill


"[A]n unsparing dissection of foundational racism in the criminal justice system ... It could not be more timely."
―Jamie Kalven, Investigative Reporter and Founder, Invisible Institute

"Each victim's case is a fascinating story in itself while the totality of the lawyers' efforts fighting a resistant establishment is staggering."
―The Observer

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

As a law student, Flint Taylor was a founding member of the People’s Law Office and has been a partner of the PLO since 1972. As a student and lawyer, he has been dedicated to litigating against police violence and racism for more than fifty-four years. Among the landmark cases that Taylor has litigated are the Fred Hampton Black Panther case; the Greensboro, North Carolina case against the KKK, Nazis and Greensboro police; and a series of cases arising from a pattern and practice of police torture and cover-up by Chicago police Commander Jon Burge, former Cook County State’s Attorney and Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, and numerous other law enforcement officials. He has represented, and continues to represent, many wrongfully convicted persons, including police torture victims who have spent decades in prison and on death row. He has chronicled his work and that of the People’s Law Office in an award-winning historical memoir titled The Torture Machine.


A Word For Kamala Harris Ft. Ta-Nehisi Coates | The Joy Reid Show

 


The Joy Reid Show

June 18, 2026
#JoyReidShow #JoyAnnReid #TheJoyReidShow

In this Joy Reid Show clip, Joy Reid sits down with award-winning author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates for his Joy Reid Show debut to discuss his landmark Vanity Fair essay, "The Next Black President." Together they wrestle with one of the hardest questions in American politics: can a Black president truly challenge empire, or does the office itself demand complicity in it? Coates traces the history of Black faces in American imperialism from Condoleezza Rice to Colin Powell to Barack Obama and asks what it really means for Kamala Harris to run again. They also dig into Palestine as a Black struggle, the moral cost of asking Arab and Palestinian Americans to vote for an administration that funded the deaths of their families, why the Democratic Party's unconditional support for Israel is a political dead end, and why Coates believes a pro-Israel Democrat simply cannot win the next primary.


/ @thejoyreidshow #JoyReidShow #JoyAnnReid #TheJoyReidShow #JoyReid #JoyReidYouTube


ABOUT JOY REID: 

Joy-Ann Lomena Reid (AKA Joy Reid) is a best-selling American author, political journalist and TV host. She was a national correspondent for MSNBC and is best known for hosting the Emmy-nominated, NAACP Award-winning political commentary and analysis show, The ReidOut, from 2020 to 2025. Her previous anchoring credits include The Reid Report (2014–2015) and AM Joy (2016–2020).


STAY CONNECTED WITH THE SHOW: 

Website: https://www.joyannreid.com
Substack: https://substack.com/@joyannreid
Facebook: / 61576759980854
Instagram: / joyreidshow
TikTok: / thejoyreidshow
Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/joyannreid.bsky.social


FOLLOW JOY ON SOCIAL: 

Facebook: / joyreidofficial
Instagram: / joyannreid
TikTok: / joyreidofficial





Posted by at

Wednesday, June 17, 2026

LONG LIVE THE BLACK RADICAL TRADITION: In homage to and deep abiding appreciation for the extraordinary life, work, and legacy of James Blood Ulmer (1940-2026)--consummate musician, composer, and compulsively innovative artist of the first magnitude--I offer the following reviews, essays, interviews, commentary, by a wide ranging number of people who share and have shared their love, insight, and critical perceptions/understandings over the past five decades of Blood’s amazing career and profound musical adventures. RIP and Thank You Blood for everything you did and tried to do in your life and art no matter what.

James Blood Ulmer, Guitarist Who Smashed Through Genres, Dies at 86

A protégé of the saxophonist Ornette Coleman, he borrowed from and greatly influenced styles like funk, punk, jazz and the blues.

Listen · 6:47 minutes


James Blood Ulmer in 1990. The New York Times called him “the most original electric guitarist to emerge since the late Jimi Hendrix.” Credit: Andrew Lepley/Redferns, via Getty Images

by Clay Risen
June 12, 2026
New York Times

James Blood Ulmer, whose aggressively avant-garde guitar compositions demolished the boundaries separating jazz, funk, punk, blues and even country music, earning him comparisons to Jimi Hendrix, the guitarist Wes Montgomery and his mentor, the saxophonist Ornette Coleman, died on June 3 in Manhattan. He was 86.

In a statement, his family said that the death, at a care facility, was from cardiac arrest.

With roots that ran deep in the gospel sounds of his South Carolina youth and the R&B he mastered early in his career, Mr. Ulmer became a fixture on New York’s downtown music scene in the 1970s, playing not just in jazz clubs but also for rock, punk and no-wave crowds.

His guitar work was explosive, propulsive and exciting. During the seven years he played with Mr. Coleman in the 1970s, he absorbed the saxophonist’s theory of harmolodics: that melody, rather than harmony or predetermined chord changes, should dictate the course of a composition.

Mr. Coleman’s intention was to free musicians from the constraints of Western notation and the hierarchy of instruments in a group.



Mr. Ulmer in 2003, two years after he released “Memphis Blood: The Sun Sessions,” an album that explored his Southern roots. Credit: KMazur/Wireimage, via Getty Images

Mr. Ulmer took those ideas further by tuning all his guitar strings to the same note, a radical move that he said gave him even more freedom.

When he showed Mr. Coleman, his mentor beamed. “He made me feel like I just graduated from his harmolodic school of music,” Mr. Ulmer said in a 2004 interview with the website Wax Poetics.

Mr. Coleman co-produced and played on Mr. Ulmer’s first solo album, “Tales of Captain Black,” recorded in 1978.

By then, Mr. Ulmer was appearing at downtown Manhattan venues like CBGB, where jazz was a rarity. He opened for post-punk bands like Public Image Ltd and for musicians like Captain Beefheart who were just as category-defying as he was.

His second album, “Are You Glad to Be in America?” (1980), was issued by Britain’s Rough Trade label, also unfamiliar territory for jazz musicians. While recording and playing in London, Mr. Ulmer took to wearing a bowler hat around town.

“We hadn’t seen anything like that before,” Geoff Travis, the label’s founder, said in an interview. “Maybe the world hadn’t.”



 
 
Ornette Coleman co-produced and played on Mr. Ulmer’s first solo album, “Tales of Captain Black,” top left, in 1978. The three albums he released soon after, in the early 1980s, “Free Lancing,” “Odyssey” and “Black Rock,” are considered landmarks in the world of cutting-edge jazz guitar. Credit: Artists House and Columbia Records

Mr. Ulmer returned to the United States with a contract from Columbia Records. Three albums followed — “Free Lancing” (1981), “Black Rock” (1982) and “Odyssey” (1983) — all considered landmarks in the world of cutting-edge jazz guitar.

In a review of “Free Lancing,” the critic Robert Palmer, writing in The New York Times, declared Mr. Ulmer “the most original electric guitarist to emerge since the late Jimi Hendrix.”

Many critics consider “Odyssey” his masterwork, a dexterous culmination of various influences — not just jazz, rock and blues, but also, thanks to the violinist Charles Burnham, elements of folk and country.

The critic John Rockwell, writing in The Times, called it “an extremely appealing album, probably the best Mr. Ulmer has made,” adding that “his singing has a charismatic growl that suits his overtly bluesy effusions perfectly.”

Willie James Ulmer was born on Feb. 8, 1940, in St. Matthews, S.C. His mother, Willie Mae (Comings) Ulmer, was a strict Baptist who forbade secular music in the home. His father, James Ulmer, was a Baptist minister who led a gospel group.

When Willie was 4, his father bought him a guitar; when he was 7, his father brought him into the group. He got the nickname Blood when other musicians took to calling him Youngblood, referring to his youthful appearance.

Ten years later, he left home for Pittsburgh, where he had family and could find work with a band. He spent several years there, and later in Columbus, Ohio, and Detroit, playing with doo-wop and jazz bands.

In Detroit, he played in the house jazz band at the storied 20 Grand club. The house R&B group was the Parliaments, led by the future funk impresario George Clinton.


Mr. Ulmer around 1970, just before he moved to New York and became the first full-time guitarist in Mr. Coleman’s band, Prime Time. Credit: Echoes/Redferns, via Getty Images

In 1971, Mr. Ulmer moved to New York, ostensibly to meet Miles Davis. Instead, he met Mr. Coleman. After a nightlong jam session, Mr. Ulmer moved into Mr. Coleman’s loft and became the first full-time guitarist in his band, Prime Time.

He also played with the drummer Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and on two albums with the saxophonist Arthur Blythe.

In 1980, Mr. Ulmer formed the Music Revelation Ensemble, a loosely united group that at various times included artists like the bassist Amin Ali and the saxophonists Pharoah Sanders and John Zorn. The group recorded seven albums over the next 20 years, three of which were released only in Japan.

Mr. Ulmer’s first marriage, to Sara Penn, ended in divorce in 1984. He married Eva Mikusch in 2017, after a long relationship.

She survives him, along with two daughters, Gia Rae Winsryg-Ulmer and Nisa Brunner; three sons, Gregory Ulmer, Michael Ulmer and Damu Musawwir; a brother, Dennie Leroy Ulmer; two sisters, the Rev. Shirley Ann Abraham and Rosetta Pope; 12 grandchildren; and 13 great-grandchildren. Another daughter, Donna Marie Ulmer, died in 2024.

In the early 2000s, Mr. Ulmer began to explore his Southern roots on albums like “Memphis Blood: The Sun Sessions” (2001), collaborating with the rock guitarist Vernon Reid, the founder of the band Living Colour. Mr. Ulmer received his only Grammy nomination for that album, in the best traditional blues category. He never achieved the fame of his mentor Mr. Coleman, let alone that of Mr. Hendrix. But he said he was fine with that.

“Music is not for judging,” he told Wax Poetics. “You listen to it and take what you can get from it. Put it in your pocket and keep moving.”
From the comments

12

Clay Risen
Obituaries reporter
James Blood Ulmer's music is uniformly exciting and wide ranging. But if you listen to nothing else, check out "Odyssey." It is a wild ride, and with its jazz, blues, rock and country influences, it is just about the most "American" album I've ever hard.
 
 
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 

Clay Risen is a Times reporter on the Obituaries desk.

See more on: Ornette Coleman



https://downbeat.com/news/detail/in-memoriam-james-blood-ulmer-19402026
 
News The Latest From Around The Music World
 
In Memoriam: James Blood Ulmer, 1940–2026
 
by The Family of James Blood Ulmer    
June 9, 2026
Downbeat

To the world, James Blood Ulmer was a legend, a visionary and a musical force whose sound was distinctive and unique. To his family, he was their teacher, their storyteller and a source of strength. (Photo: Courtesy of the Ulmer Family)
 
With deep sorrow and profound love, we announce the passing of James Blood Ulmer, a boldly innovative guitarist, singer, composer and beloved family member. James died peacefully on Wednesday, June 3, 2026, at the age of 86.
 
Born on Feb. 8, 1940, the eldest of eight children, Blood grew up in rural, deeply segregated St. Matthews, South Carolina. His father, a Baptist preacher, gave him his first guitar when he was 4 years old. Raised on church music, James’ first professional gig was singing gospel with his father’s vocal quartet, the Southern Sons. When his voice changed, he turned to the guitar and found inspiration in Chuck Berry and the blues — music his god-fearing parents condemned as “devil’s music.”
After graduating from high school, James left home at 18 and migrated north to Pittsburgh, where he married, had two children, Greg and Donna, and found work accompanying doo-wop groups like the Del Vikings on guitar. He soon began touring throughout the United States and performing in Europe. Following his time in Pittsburgh, James moved to Columbus, Ohio, and he later relocated to Detroit, where his third child, Michael, was born. For the next five years, James stayed off the road and taught music while playing local clubs with drummer Doug Hammond in Focus Novii. After receiving the cold shoulder from his hero, Wes Montgomery, Blood began developing his own musical language, determined to sound like no one else.
In 1971, James moved once again, this time to New York, where his guitar caught the ear of legendary avant-garde jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman. He soon joined Coleman’s harmolodic funk band, Prime Time. Among Blood’s discography of over 25 genre-bending albums are his milestone records: 1980’s Are You Glad To Be In America? (which featured Blood’s classic song which asked his listeners the quintessential question), Free Lancing (1981), Black Rock (1982) and Odyssey (1983). More recently James returned to singing roots music with Memphis Blood in 2001 and Bad Blood In The City, which was nominated for a Grammy in 2007. The late music critic Greg Tate once described James as “the missing link between Jimi Hendrix and [his favorite guitarist] Wes Montgomery on one hand, and P-Funk and Mississippi Fred McDowell on the other.”
 
Following Blood’s final concert at the Detroit Jazz Festival on Sept. 1, 2024, his health began to decline, and he entered a quieter season away from the road and the stage. Beyond his lifelong dedication to music, Blood was a father to six children: Greg, Donna, Michael, Gia, Damu and Nisa. He was also the proud grandfather of 12 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren. To the world, James Blood Ulmer was a legend, a visionary and a musical force whose sound was distinctive and unique. To his family, he was their teacher, their storyteller, and a source of strength. To Eva, his wife and partner, James was her rock, her hero and her beloved companion of 16 years. His music was fearless, and so was his spirit.
 
There will be a public celebration of James’s life in the near future, so stay tuned. Please respect our privacy at this time and play Blood’s music LOUD!
—The Family of James Blood Ulmer

Time For A Blood Transfusion
BLACK ROCK
James Blood Ulmer
Columbia, 1982

Music review by Kofi Natambu

Solid Ground: A New World Journal
Volume 1 Number 3/4
Winter/Spring, 1983
Detroit

Timing has always been a major factor in the emergence of seminal artistic figures in black creative music. In fact, one of the most consistent features in the history of the music has been the appearance of innovative individual artists (or ensembles) at a crucial period in the art’s development. Examples include Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane, the Art Ensemble of Chicago and Anthony Braxton, Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk, etc. While everyone has their favorite list the point is that as rich, fertile, and diverse as the tradition has been, there has always remained those singular forces that have played a pivotal role in the ascension of the music as a major international art-form. These individuals quickly become known as archetypes in Afro-American culture and serve as guides to the artistic future of American society. Rank hyperbole? Don’t look now: HERE COMES BLOOD!

Talk about timing. Just when it seemed that Jimi Hendrix would be the last truly creative guitar player that American would ever produce (with all due respect to your favorite fret’n mash strummer out there) James Blood comes roaring out of the loft underground in New York City in 1979, playing a riveting ‘pump and drive’ foil to the fiery byzantine lyricism of Ornette Coleman. Harmolodics meets whiplash guitar. The recording from this mighty union was entitled “The Tales of Captain Black” (on the small Artists House label), which introduced most listeners to the jagged quicksilver melodies that are now a Blood trademark. There was also a tortuous, aching (post?) romanticism that managed to sound ominously tough and unsentimental, yet inti­mate, warm, and compassionate all at once. This aspect of Blood’s multifaceted persona sounded like a brand new approach to the “ballad form.” However, the music is much more captivating than that academic phrase would suggest. Anyway, it was at this point that I became a flat-out Blood fanatic, endlessly playing the record for my musician-friends and setting some sort of record for playing it on my radio program. The release of Blood’s 1981 recording entitled Freelancing (this time for the huge conglomerate called CBS, INC.) confirmed his greatness for me. What I mean is, I played the music even more than before.

Now you might legitimately ask what does all of this have to do with Blood’s new record? Well, it is now a year later and Blood still has the same hypnotic effect that he always had. He does this simply by playing the hell out of the guitar and composing some of the most subtly rich and witty music I have ever had the privilege to hear.

What Blood does is not easily translatable in words. The music does not lend itself to flippant categorizing or easy analysis. To say that he uses the harmolodic method of instant modulation and orchestration that allows all members of an ensemble to play melodic lines at the same time does not really indicate the startling originality of the sound that is created. This distinctive sound resists standard definitions of genre, style, and idiom. It does not pander to fashionable trends nor does it play the listener cheap. It is a music of strength, grace, and eloquence that refuses to sacrifice humor, bravura, or even good time histrionics. No matter how “technical” and complex the music gets (and the forest gets plenty thick, indeed) it remains emotionally direct and powerful. In the ole days we would have said that the music “has a whole lotta heart and soul.” It is this sublime unity of virtuosity and feeling that gives Blood’s music its transformative powers.

Now for the evidence: Consider the slashing and searing syncopations of the tune “Open House” or the faster-than-the-speed-of-sound precision of bass, drums, and guitar on “Overnight. “Juxtapose the manic out of of tempo careening of the harmolodic trio of Blood, Amin Ali (electric bass), and Grant Calvin Weston (drums) on “More Blood” to the almost pastoral funk sensualness on “Love Have Two Faces.” Listen to the throaty, hard-edged singing of Blood as he shouts, growls, moans, and croons on “Family Affair.” In fact, whenever the rich melisma of Blood’s bluesvoice mingles with the liquid gospelisms of vocalist Irene Datcher on this tune and “Love Have...” the impact is mesmerizing. The sound is so majestic, noble, and passionate that it makes a beautiful, heartfelt mockery of what passes for the “lovesong” genre today. Datcher and Blood brilliantly redefine the form and make you believe that REAL LOVE between Man and Woman is not only possible, but evident. A definite coup in ’82.

On top of all this, the “supporting cast” is astonishing. For starters one writer once described Amin Ali as “bionic.” That’s close. Frankly, to hear a man play electric bottom with this much power and ease at the demonic tempos that this band routinely sets, is scary. Need convincing? Listen to “Moon Beam,” “Fun House” and “Black Rock.” Or for blistering post-bop hysterics check out “We Bop.” Who says science, art, and the bootyshake don’t mix? Another taboo bites de dust. As for the rhythmic hummingbird that is Grant Calvin Weston: Where does a 22-year-old get off playing drums with the energy, drive, and dexterity of Elvin Jones, and the tonal sensitivity and finesse of the young Tony Williams? Not that I’m complaining, ya understand...

As for other major contributions to this Hoodoo stew, let’s not forget Sam Sanders. Thass right, Detroit’s own, of S.S. and Visions. I’m happy to note that the long-time “local” saxophone wizard plays like a man possessed on tenor and alto. Dig “Moon Beam,” “We Bop,” and “Overnight.” Burning and thrashing. And as for the Bloodbrother/vessel himself? He cuts, flails, strokes, rips, and rumbles his way through the liberated harmolodic jungle with an awe-inspiring HEROISM and CLARITY that gives one a lot more than mere hope. It gives you the tools and weapons to forge a New World with. If you listen you will hear that the truth is delight. As Blood says: “Love don’t mean a thing/if you don’t love somebody…”
 
 
James Blood Ulmer, adventurous US guitarist and vocalist, dies aged 86

Musician who spliced jazz, funk and blues, including in a spell on a major label in the early 1980s, was celebrated as ‘fearless’ by his family

by Ben Beaumont-Thomas
9 June 2026
The Guardian (UK)

James Blood Ulmer, the US guitarist celebrated for his avant garde splicing of jazz, blues and funk, has died aged 86.

A statement on social media said he died on 3 June. “His music was fearless, and so was his spirit,” his family added in another statement.
Born Willie James Ulmer in South Carolina in 1940, Ulmer’s music career started out in funk bands, shuttling from Pittsburgh to Columbus to Detroit – and backed musicians such as Jewel Bryner and Hank Marr – before settling in New York in the early 1970s. “I ain’t never thought nobody could make no money playing free music,” he later said. “So I always played structured blues, rhythm playing, dance music, or something like that. And I abandoned it! When I came to New York, it was like … I just went totally another way.”

As well as playing there with Art Blakey, Joe Henderson and Rashied Ali, Ulmer was mentored by Ornette Coleman, who schooled him in his “harmolodic” theory: avoiding regular keys and harmonics in favour of a freer approach to sound. That spirit would inform Ulmer’s entire career from then on, characterised as it was by instinctive, unbounded playing even as Ulmer began to embrace songwriting.

Coleman co-produced Ulmer’s debut album Tales of Captain Black, and Ulmer released his next album, Are You Glad to Be in America?, on the UK’s Rough Trade label: the spirited social commentary on the title track made it a signature song, and he ended up supporting punk and rock bands such as Public Image Ltd and Captain Beefheart. Of crowds at these gigs, he later said: “I’d stand at the microphone and tell them to shut the fuck up. They had five minutes to get into it or get the fuck out!”

He collaborated with jazz saxophonist Arthur Blythe, contributing to his album Lenox Avenue Breakdown (1979) and Illusions (1980): released on Columbia, the sessions earned Ulmer a Columbia record deal of his own. The three albums he put out with Columbia between 1981 and 1983 – Free Lancing, Black Rock and Odyssey – were remarkably progressive for a major label, though not devoid of commerciality, as Ulmer paired virtuosic bluesy guitar with tight funk arrangements and soulful singing. Free Lancing had him hailed in Rolling Stone as “the most original electric guitarist to emerge since the late Jimi Hendrix”.

VIDEO:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kox-sFTDXX8 
 
Blood's 1983 version of his1980 classic 
"Are you Glad To Be in America? 

Ulmer also formed a separate band, Music Revelation Ensemble, featuring saxophonist David Murray, bassist Amin Ali and drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson, who put out their debut No Wave in 1980 and would end up releasing six more albums. Another group, Phalanx, reconnected him with Ali.

After the Columbia years, Ulmer was briefly signed to Blue Note for 1987’s America – Do You Remember the Love?, and continued to release studio albums during the 1990s and 2000s as he focused less on jazz and more on blues. Blue Blood (2001) featured an impressive band including Bill Laswell, Amina Claudine Myers and Funkadelic’s Bernie Worrell; released the same year, Memphis Blood: The Sun Sessions earned Ulmer his only Grammy nomination, for best traditional blues album.

He was also called on by others to add his inimitable guitar playing: he appears on records including Ry Cooder’s score for Wim Wenders’ 1997 film The End of Violence, and on Phrenology by hip-hop group the Roots.

He eventually retired in 2024, playing his final concert at that year’s Detroit jazz festival.
Explore more on these topics
 
James Blood Ulmer - "are you glad to be in america?"  (original version by Blood and the and brilliant video of same in 1980)
 
VIDEO:
  

James Blood Ulmer Solo live @ Skopje Jazz Festival October 15, 2015: 

skopjejazzfest
 
VIDEO:
 
JAMES BLOOD ULMER
(b. February 8, 1940--d. June 3, 2026) 

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/james-blood-ulmer-mn0000114031/biography 
James Blood Ulmer
(b. February 8, 1940)
Artist Biography by Chris Kelsey
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. Ulmer plays with a stuttering, vocalic attack; his lines are frequently texturally and chordally based, inflected with the accent of a soul-jazz tenor saxophonist. That's not to say his sound is untouched by the rock tradition -- the influence of Jimi Hendrix on Ulmer is strong -- but it's mixed with blues, funk, and free jazz elements. The resultant music is an expressive, hard-edged, loudly amplified hybrid that is, at its best, on a level with the finest of the Harmolodic school.

Ulmer began his career playing in funk bands, first in Pittsburgh (1959-1964) and later around Columbus, OH (1964-1967). Ulmer spent four years in Detroit before moving to New York in 1971. He landed a nine-month gig at the famed birthplace of bop, Minton's Playhouse, and played very briefly with Art Blakey. In 1973, he recorded Rashied Ali Quintet with the ex-John Coltrane drummer on the Survival label. That same year, he hooked up with Ornette Coleman, whose concept affected Ulmer's music thereafter. The guitarist's recordings from the late '70s and early '80s exhibit a unique take on his mentor's aesthetic. His blues and rock-tinged art was, if anything, more raw and aggressive than Coleman's free jazz and funk-derived music (a reflection, no doubt, of Ulmer's chosen instrument), but no less compelling from either an intellectual or an emotional standpoint. In 1981, Ulmer led the first of three record dates for Columbia, which helped to expose his music to a wider public. Around this time Ulmer began an association with tenor saxophonist David Murray, Bassist Amin Ali, and drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson. As the Music Revelation Ensemble, this intermittent assemblage (with various other members added and subtracted) would produce a number of intense, free-blowing albums over a span of almost two decades.

Ulmer's work has varied in quality over the years. In 1987, with the cooperative group Phalanx (George Adams, tenor sax; Sirone, bass; and Rashied Ali, drums), Ulmer drew successfully on the free jazz expressionism that made his name. Generally, however, Ulmer's interest in out jazz waned in the '80s and '90s, to the extent that his music became progressively more structured, rhythmically regular, and (arguably) less inventive. Much of his later work bears scant resemblance to the edgy free jazz he played earlier. Nevertheless, '90s recordings with the Music Revelation Ensemble showed him still capable of playing convincingly in that vein. 
Blood dug deeply into an investigation of the blues as the century turned. First he recorded Memphis Blood: The Sun Sessions with guitarist Veron Reid both performing and producing. The album also starred veteran Ulmer sideman Charles Burnham on violin. In 2003 he issued No Escape From the Blues, recorded at Electric Lady studio. A thorouhgly psychedlic funky take on the genre, Reid and Burnham were present in the same roles once more, and old friend Olu Dara stopped into to contribute as well. In 2005 Blood released Birthright, on Joel Dorn's Hyena label. It is easily his most intimatre recording. Completely solo in the studio (Reid once again produced) it contains 10 orignals and two covers of classic reportoire and takes Blood's blues journey to an entirely new level.

James Blood Ulmer - Black Rock (full album):

legendary and pioneering guitarist James "Blood" Ulmer's 1982 album Black Rock
 
VIDEO:


  • James Blood Ulmer – electric guitar; vocals (tracks 2, 4, 6)
  • Ronald Drayton – rhythm guitar (except 5, 8)
  • Amin Ali – electric bass, backing vocals (2), lead vocals (8)
  • Grant Calvin Weston – drums; backing vocals (2, 7)
  • Cornell Rochester – second drums (1, 3, 5 & 6)
  • Sam Sanders – tenor saxophone (3), alto saxophone (7)
  • Irene Datcher – vocals (4, 6)
    •  
    All compositions and arrangements by James Blood Ulmer:
     
    Open House 0:00:00 
    Black Rock 0:05:21 
    Moon Beam 0:08:44 
    Family Affair 0:13:55 
    More Blood 0:21:22 
    Love Have Two Faces 0:26:06 
    Overnight 0:31:35 
    Fun House 0:35:01 
    We Bop 0:39:55

    James ‘Blood’ Ulmer - Are You Glad to Be in America? (1980)--Full Album     
     
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgkodsMA5n8


    00:00 - - - A1 — Layout - - - (5.00)
    05:07 - - - A2 — Pressure - - - (3.50)
    08:57 - - - A3 — Interview - - - (3.34)
    12:34 - - A4 — Jazz Is The Teacher (Funk Is The Preacher) - - - (4.02) . . . Rhythm Guitar - William Patterson
    16:39 - - - A5 — See-Through - - - (3.43)
    20:25 - - - End Side a)
    20:41 - - - B1 — Time Out - - - (5.20)
    26:01 - - - B2 — T.V. Blues - - - (4.30)
    30:34 - - - B3 — Light Eyed - - - (4.18)
    34:55 - - - B4 — Revelation March - - - (3.16)
    38:15 - - - B5 — Are You Glad to Be in America? - - - (4.33)

    James ‘Blood’ Ulmer - Guitar
    Amin Ali - Electric Bass
    Ronald Shannon Jackson - Drums
    G. Calvin Weston - Drums
    David Murray - Tenor Sax
    Oliver Lake - Alto Sax
    Olu Dara - Trumpet

    Recorded 17/1/80, RCA Studios, NYC
     
    All tracks written produced, & arranged by James ‘Blood’ Ulmer. 
     
     
    Perfect Sound Forever 

    JAMES BLOOD ULMER
     

    Interview by Jason Gross (April 1998)

    Though there's been hundreds and thousands of hotshots who vowed to take the guitar to the next level after Jimi Hendrix broke the doors open, James 'Blood' Ulmer is one of the very few people to actually do this. His legend would be secure just from his work with Ornette Coleman as harmolodic music (combining harmony and melody) began to take shape. Ulmer really came to his own and then some as he began his solo careeer at the end of the '70's, putting together this distinct new wave of free jazz with bottom-bumping funk and gut-bucket blues as he began to make his own revolution in music, culminating with 1983's Odyssey. For years now, he's faithfully explored the possibilties that he's opened up with his own records as well as the Music Revlation Ensemble and now the James Blood Ulmer Blues Experience and a return to his Odyssey band (with violinst Charles Burnham and drummer Warren Benbow). Any thoughts that this concept may not sound as fresh today were laid to rest pretty quickly with an Odyssey show at the Knitting Factory where Blood, Burnham and Benbow burned up the stage- recorded evidence of this can be found on the recent Odyssey Reunion CD.

    PSF: What led you to work with the Odyssey band again?

    Well, it was really Charlie Burnham's idea. I was working in Third Rail, Music Revelation Ensemble and the Blues Experience. It was Charlie who insisted that we should go after this sound again. We're playing what I would call diotonic harmoladic music, meaning that the guitar, violin and the drums are totally playing in unison with equal voice. The guitar I have tuned to a unison tuning, away from the regular tuning of the guitar. No one plays the guitar tuned with all strings tuned to one note. The concept is about that, being that we are trying to play a special music that shows the difference in the structure of the instrument of getting the sound and having a base for what we're doing. Meaning that the guitar has to take care of a certain area and the violin is basically on top, the guitar is in the middle and the drums are on the bottom, playing in unison at the same time, harmolodically. That's what we were trying to do and that's what we were working on before. To start back working on that in that manner and with those instruments and making a good effort of continuing what we call harmolodic music where the instruments are in key, playing all 12 notes at the same time.

    PSF: What's interesting about the band is that you have no bass player but you don't notice that when you hear the music. It's like there's no hole left there, no gaps.

    We have a middle, a bottom and a top. It's what it's supposed to do. Once you make that connection, that's what's supposed to happen.

    PSF: Going way back, you were in gospel group with father when you were young. What kind of bearing do you think that had on your later music?

    That's WAY far back! (laughs) That's when I was a kid. I don't have too much recollection about that. We had a spiritual group. He (my father) was the leader and manager of that. I was in that group. I was waiting to get out of that group! Everything you do has a bearing on your music until you take a while and decide what you want to do with your music. What are you going to do with it? Once you decide that, everything that you've experienced is going to become what you're playing, what's coming out of you.

    PSF: After that, you were in a band called Focus Novii. You did some gigs with Funkadelic back then?

    I was playing in the 20 Grand Club and the Parliaments were the house band upstairs and I was playing in the jazz band downstairs. At the time, I thought I was much more advance than Parliament-Funkadelic. I was playing jazz and they were playing blues. (laughs) I should have thought about it because it turned out the other way.

    When you learned how to play jazz, money didn't set the trend with how advanced you were with what you were doing. You went to school and you started out with church music then you play the blues and then you play avant-garde and then you play classical, first and last, and then you play what you want to play after that. That's how the school went. You'd pass a certain grade and then you'd go. That don't mean anything about how much money you make.

    PSF: A lot of musicians took the same route. You think this is a necessary learning experience?

    I don't think people are still keeping that same system going. I was think it was used for a while but I don't know about it. I think it's more or less a finance (decision). Everybody who plays music isn't really supposed to play music. You really could do something else much better. You ever hear anybody play music like that?

    PSF: A lot of times!

    Right, you hear them play but you really think they could do something else much better. (laughs)

    PSF: I've heard you say that you've tried to get rid of scales and chords in music. Is this something ongoing for you?

    I want the scales and chords to exist because without them, there would be no way to distinguish what you're playing. You playing a scale, you know what you're playing. If you wasn't playing a scale, you would have to find out what you're playing. A scale is a way that something is set up to do. There's another side to that, which is harmolodic again. That's where it's very valuable to know harmolodic music where you don't have to depend on the chords and the scales. That's what it means. But you have to know about it first. You can't NOT know about it.

    PSF: Since we're talking about harmolodics, could you talk about your work with Ornette and how you each may have influenced each others' music?

    Well, when you're working with someone close, like the way me and Coleman was, the thought is never what you're doing for each other. The thought is what what you're doing for what you're trying to do. Coleman always worked on something specifically and tried to take it to the highest level there is. So when you get through doing that, you ain't got time to be thinking about influencing somebody. You're trying to finish that piece of work.

    One time I was writing the music to this play and he was into just directing it. He wanted to know every beat on the whole score. He puts everything to music and it was just incredible because (it was like) going through a needle and thread without leaving the hole. Just knitting it. It was amazing! Working with a person like that is just so amazing so you really don't think about who's influencing who. You're just thinking 'let's find out a way to get this.' He's definitely made me aware of harmolodic by making me aware of certain things. The coolest thing he told me (was) that I was a natural harmolodic player. He was one of the persons who could make you feel like what you were doing was so important. That's another thing that I got from Coleman- it's like someone who makes you feel that what you do is good. That's what he done.

    PSF: You started as an instrumentalist but soon added vocals to songs- what led to the change?

    After the first record I made, Tales of Captain Black, I started putting one song or two songs on every record I made. I figured that I do that one day because before I started playing and got to New York with it, I used to always be involved in singing music. I wasn't necessarily the singer but I was playing in bands where there was a singer. I always admired that kind of singing so I didn't want to cute it really loose. I always wanted to have a little singing because that's where I came from before I met these powerful guys. I always put one or two on a record until I had enough songs to play a gig singing songs.

    PSF: With those early bands that you had when you started, did anything going on in other types of music like new wave or punk have any bearing on your own music?

    Tales of Captain Black was produced by Coleman. With Freelancing, I don't know no band that sounds like that. I had Shannon Jackson playing drums, Calvin Weston, Olu Dara, David Murray, Amin Ali. That band was, I hate to say this, the first black band that entered into the clubs in New York City and did punk/funk/new wave. James Blood Band was the first black band to be playing that music in those clubs like Hurrah and Danceteria. No white band was playing shit like we were playing. I didn't hear no motherfuckers playing shit like we were playing. They let us in and we played with (Captain) Beefheart and Public Image and played in all those big clubs in New York. The shit was happening- nobody was playing that shit. I haven't heard anybody playing that shit yet- that's why I got to go back and play with Odyssey! (laughs) I had to go back 15 years to that!

    PSF: Are You Glad to Be In America came out on different labels (Rough Trade and Artists House) with different mixes. Are you satisfied with either of the released versions?

    To me, it's all the same music. I can hear through all of it. I don't hear the mix, I hear the music. The mix is very personal, like you see a woman and somebody might like her shoes or her dresses but you still see the woman. (laughs) I don't hear the different versions. I don't hear that. I mixed both of those records so it sounds like the same shit to me. I know they must have something there because we were trying to definitely get a different mix. I heard Ry Cooder say 'that first mix was the baddest thing. Nothing'll ever touch that.' He's slick, man! There might be something there but I can't hear that yet. I know it's something different. When I'm going in to make a record, I'm always trying to figure out how to make a certain mix. Once it gets to a certain point, I'm just agreeing with everybody. I'll be waiting for the co-producer to jump in there! I'd be trying to get the music straight and getting everything to line up and make sure anyone isn't playing what they're not supposed to be playing and get that out of the way. Then I'm ready for someone else to step in.

    PSF: There was four year gap between Odyssey and next solo studio album though you did collaborations with David Murray and George Adams. Was there any reason for that?

    Yeah, I was looking for a record deal! I was bumped off Columbia. But I don't have any problem with Columbia. I did my three records and they didn't pick up the option but that was good. If I had made a million dollars off of three, that would be enough. I didn't need any more. That was good- I'm glad they didn't take any more because I didn't make any money off the first three! (laughs) I didn't mind get bumped off there at all because I was trying to get into real serious music. They didn't want what I call real, serious music. All I know is that it was good that we got to do three records with them 'cause I could say that I had it on Columbia Records. Some people have made 10, 15 records on Columbia and they're still trying to pay for things. They did pretty good. They thought Odyssey was a really good record. In fact, it did better than they thought it was going to do.

    I also understand the record companies. You're trying to sell something and make money and you got all these people coming up here and you have no idea what to go by except what is selling, you have to have a different kind of head for that. It's good that these people exist. That way, you might get something to go.

    PSF: How do you objectively see the music you were doing at that time in the early '80's?

    I was glad that we got the chance to do those records. It was right in the time and at the top of the time too. No one knew whether they was going to like that. Something came out of that era right there, in the '70's and '80's. I think it was starting to materialize in the late '60's and then it came out strong at the top of the '80's. The way that many bands survived during that era, with Beefheart and Public Image and all these guys that were into that zone, it was almost... holy! (laughs)

    PSF: You've spoken about seperating aspects of your work with blues (Blues Experience), harmolodic and Music Revelation Ensemble in early '90s. Why did you break up your work/style like that?

    Basically, I have a problem because I'm a musician and I like to play and ever since I've been playing music, I never worked with too many people. Too many people don't call me up to work. I figured that I had to create different kinds of situations where I could play in. I have to find a band to work in to play a special type of music. I have to create the type of band that I want to keep playing with. I used to play with rhythm and blues bands and I'm a die-hard so I don't want to give it up. I don't want to go all way over and start something and just stop something I've been doing. I just didn't want to stop it, I wanted to keep it going. I guess my whole music has been that way. I'd work on certain things and just try to keep it going and create enough activity. That's real hard, harder than making your own job!

    PSF: Would you see yourself doing a convergence of these things again?

    What makes that impossible is that playing the guitar in tune is different than playing the guitar out of tune. The greatness of one is not in music. Everyone thinks about the greatness of one. But music don't have one thing. Every one thing has the music- you're supposed to put everything in one thing. If I'm playing the blues or playing with Music Revelation Ensemble, I'm just as happy. But to express yourself, you can do it vocally or on at instrument or express yourself with gestures. You have to express how you feel about what you're doing some kind of way. Some have one, some have four!

    PSF: With Third Rail, do you see that as a break from your other music?

    I thought that it would have been a step in the right direction for what I was trying to do with the Blues Experience. I was just singing songs with that and getting together that project. I thought that I would get the chance to play with players that already had the direction themselves who could come together and do that one thing that I was talking about. Everyone with a concept and putting that concept together to make that one thing on their own without me saying 'you play this rhythm and you play this.' When the drums start, Bernie (Worrell) knows were to play! He gonna play something that you didn't know he knew about.

    That's what I thought it was going to be. But I still have big hopes for Third Rail. I'm sure if we could ever get the paperwork to match the music, then we would be fine.

    PSF: How did Harmolodic Guitar And Strings come about? That seems like kind of a departure from your other work.

    Yeah, that was different. That was another extension of the Odyssey band. I was thinking that the string quartet would be my next move. It would be the string quartet with Odyssey. That would be powerful. You always have to do a little bit first. I did that with the string quartet. Then maybe an orchestra. If I would play with that concept, I would first play that music for people. So we won't write no more new music for now, we won't change the script until people really get to hear this.

    PSF: With your recent tribute CD to Coleman Music Speaks Louder Than Words, what aspect of his work were you exploring?

    What I was really trying to demonstrate on that record was to show how you could take a harmolodic melody-- I chose Coleman's music which I thought was direct harmolodic melody-- and play it on your instrument and get the same value out of it as he got from playing it on alto. Letting the guitar flow with the melody and get the same authority and flow into that feeling. Playing Coleman's music on the guitar- that was basically the kind of feeling I was trying to get. Meaning that the guitar controls all of the sound, not the horn. If you notice in this material, the guitar was dominating the sound more than the melody. Putting that melody inside the guitar and winding it up to play 'dee-dee-dee-dee'! (laughs)

    But Coleman put a SOUND on that harmolodic music. I like his melodies, he can write and play some pretty melodies. He could make a note real meaningful. He like to play that way, every note has to be that way. He don't like to play notes that don't mean something.

    PSF: How do you think his music has changed since you played with him?

    I think the people that Coleman has been playing with have been changing, not the music. Coleman plays the same music, the same way. The only reason that he sounds different now is because of the people he plays with. 

    PSF: How do you think your playing style has evolved from Tales of Captain Black to now?

    Odyssey, Music Revelations Ensemble, all those things happened after that. That's what came out of it. It's just a changing process. I don't think it's finished.

    PSF: Hopefully not.

    Right! (laughs) It's like if you turn wild horses loose, you always send them home. I hear some stuff that's different sometimes. I hear a 24-guitar orchestra. But who knows. Music just keeps evolving and going around. But there's not that many concept systems for it.

    PSF: Are there other guitarists whose work you admire?

    I like a lot of guitar players. It's hard to listen to a guitar player. I never really listen because when I was coming up, starting to play music, they didn't have no guitar. John Coltrane, Miles Davis, these brothers didn't have no guitar players. I didn't really listen to guitars. For now, I don't know. I like all guitar players I guess. I know Jimi Hendrix did something for the guitar. He could PLAY on that. He made a movement which was good and used that. He was maybe the last guy who did something for the guitar. That was an instrument that you couldn't play much. They used to let you play one or two choruses and that was it. That's all you had. Thanks to Jimi, we got to get in the house and play.

    PSF: What did you admire about Hendrix?

    The way he played, not his music. His playing was really good and it captured a lot. Everybody's trying to get that sound that he captured in that music. It captured more people than wanted to be captured. That sound that he was playing enabled guitar players to go out and get jobs. 'I'm Jimi Hendrix!' 'I'm Jimi Hendrix!' 'I'm Jimi Hendrix!' That's what every guitar player was saying. That sound was all you needed to have. It's not his music, it's the SOUND that's what happening.

    I got to the sounds as the strongest part of that music. How he played it, sliding it between his legs and setting it on fire, I'm not into all of that! I'm not coming from there. To me, that's forbidden in my day. You weren't allowed to do stuff like that. You can't fuck a guitar! You can't set it on fire! If I did that, I couldn't get out of the way probably- I'd be thinking about the beautiful notes and then I'd catch on fire myself! (laughs)

    PSF: You've worked a number of times with Jamaaladeen Tacuma and Ronald Shannon Jackson- do you find a certain chemistry there, playing with them?

    That's some good brothers now. It's like you get left in the wilderness. When we get together to play, it's like we all got left in the wilderness! Finding out how to get out. We're playing together, it's like 'wow, where IS the leader?' (laughs) That's what that feeling is.

    PSF: Could you talk about the projects of the American Revelation Music Production?

    That's my production company. They put together everything I do. Since 1978. Our goal is to try to work with all of the artists who have played inside this company already and done something already. Ronnie Drayton, Bill Laswell, Jerome Brailey, Bernie Worrell, Amina Meyer, Cornell Rochester, Calvin Weston, Amin Ali, Charlie Burnham, Warren Benbow, Salieu Suso, Kewulay Kamara and Akua Dixon, who's a good person to know because she can get an orchestra together like that (snaps his fingers). Also, Gayle Dixon, John Blake, Ron Lawrence. 

    PSF: What about your work with the band Sacred Concept?

    It's a concept of how to take the music and celebrate the praises of the Creator instead of a lot of other things. We have a kora player (Salieu Suso) and a guitar and a kimba (Kewulay Kamara). I think it will also have to come out of the realm of Odyssey. Odyssey has that revealing sound from that kora that's in there. A great horn for that sound is the digeridoo. We haven't done anything publicly yet with this group but we're trying hard. We've got the music and we're ready to record but ain't no record companies. It's something that I'll have to do myself and I would be glad to do that myself and produce.

    PSF: How do you see jazz today?

    It ain't going nowhere. The thing to do in music now is to celebrate the praises of the Creator. That's what anybody has to do with playing any instrument. Just try to celebrate this. That's all. No more songs about how you feel about the rain or how the band's looking or what you had for breakfast. It's time to celebrate the Creator.

    PSF: What about other styles of music today? Any thoughts on music nowadays otherwise?

    The way they're doing it now is wrong. They use the young kids for everything. They had to age you a little bit. If you ain't 30, you got to wait! Then when you're 40, you got to quit. But the Creator knows what he's doing, everyone else is crazy but he knows what he's doing.

    But I like all types of music. I like everything I've heard because they was playing music. It's like meeting a family member, when you're hearing it and they're really trying to do it. When you're hearing it, you can't help it. You got to like that! I love all this stuff. All classical music, I don't know who the composer is but I love it. I know more about the music than I know what the composer's name is. I don't have to know the name of the person. It's like when you're listening to music at night and hear something good, you think 'I'm glad I don't have to compete with them tonight!'

    PSF: How would you like people to remember and look back at you and your work?

    A hard worker! That's it! (laughs)

    See some of James Blood's favorite music here:

    James Brown

    Ray Charles

    Tina Turner

    Aretha Franklin

    Ornette Coleman

    Jimi Hendrix

    I like everybody--you got to be an AWFUL person for me not to like you. Listening and chosing takes a lot of time. Some people take a whole lifetime listening to someone and trying to be like someone. You have to get to the level to chose something you really like. If you're clever, you can really do it. If I hear something one time, I can write a book about it! The harmolodic system is designed like that- it snatches things from the wall. You can notate whatever you hear and see as far as music being sight and sound. You have to be careful when you listen to people. I like music that makes me think. There's three types of music: one makes you think about the Creator, one don't make you think about the Creator and one makes you think about nothing.
     

    James Blood Ulmer - Solo (Sines 2009)
     
    Festival Músicas do Mundo Sines 2009
     
    VIDEO: 
     

    James Blood - Tales of Captain Black

    VIDEO:
     
    James Blood Tales of Captain Black One:
    Artists House, 1978
     
    ALL COMPOSITIONS AND ARRANGEMENTS BY JAMES BLOOD ULMER 

    JAMES BLOOD ULMER QUARTET:
     
    James Blood, guitar 
    Ornette Coleman, alto saxophone
    Jaamaladeen Tacuma, bass 
    Denardo Coleman, drums 
     
    ONE:

    1. Theme from Captain Black 00:00
    2. Moons Shines 03:14
    3. Morning Bride 07:04
    4. Revelation March 11:57

    TWO:
    1. Woman Coming 16:27
    2. Nothing to Say 19:48
    3. Arena 23:54
    4. Revealing 28:13


    http://www.nytimes.com/1981/10/04/arts/a-very-special-guitarist.html

    A VERY SPECIAL GUITARIST
    by ROBERT PALMER
    October 4, 1981
    New York Times 

    James Blood Ulmer plays the electric guitar. So do countless professional, semiprofessional and amateur musicians the world over, but none of them sounds like Mr. Ulmer. He has shared concert stages with Ornette Coleman and other jazz artists and with forward-looking rock performers like Public Image Ltd. and Captain Beefheart, and he has been enthusiastically reviewed by jazz and rock critics. But his few recordings have been for independent labels, and he has been little heard outside New York City, where he lives, and a few European cities. That situation will change later this month when Columbia Records releases Mr. Ulmer's new album ''Free Lancing.'' Although it is actually his fourth LP, it will probably be the first of his recordings to penetrate beyond the small circle of new-music devotees that has been aware of his work all along. And it confirms what these devotees have been saying for several years now - that Mr. Ulmer is the most original electric guitarist to emerge since the late Jimi Hendrix, who made his most influential recordings between 1967 and 1970.

    The comparison to Jimi Hendrix isn't entirely inappropriate; Mr. Ulmer's singing voice is very reminiscent of Mr. Hendrix's. But Mr. Ulmer sings only occasionally. Three of the 10 selections on ''Free Lancing'' are vocals, and of his earlier albums, only one, ''Are You Glad to Be in America?,'' includes any singing whatsoever. Nor is Mr. Ulmer a flamboyant performer in the Hendrix mode. His vocals can be winning, as they are on the Columbia album, but they are not the main attraction. On the stage and on records, he is first and foremost a guitarist.

    Mr. Ulmer, who was born and grew up in South Carolina, played rhythm-and-blues before becoming involved in avant-garde jazz in the early 1970's. He made his first jazz recordings with a group led by the drummer Rashied Ali, but it was only after he became involved with the saxophonist Ornette Coleman in the mid-70's that his style really crystalized. Mr. Coleman is the originator of a theory he calls ''harmolodics'' - the term is a contraction of the words harmony, motion and melodic. In a nutshell, the harmolodic theory overturns more traditional methods of improvisation by allowing spontaneous melodies to generate appropriate chord sequences; in traditional improvising, the player builds melodies on top of predetermined chord sequences, usually sequences derived from popular songs or the blues. Mr. Ulmer's approach to harmolodic playing emphasizes melodies that are often quite lyrical, but as he develops these melodies in his improvisations he throws in bursts of dissonant chording and jagged phrases that eventually lead him far afield. His habit of returning to his original melodies in a surprising but perfectly logical manner is one of the most engaging aspects of his playing.

    Much has been made of Mr. Ulmer's debt to Ornette Coleman, but he was playing in a style roughly similar to his present one before he began working with Mr. Coleman. His study of harmolodics did bring focus and depth to his playing, and his use of dance rhythms closely parallels Mr. Coleman's work with the electric band Prime Time. But Mr. Coleman and Prime Time strive for a kind of melodic counterpoint in which each instrument plays an equally important part, and Mr. Ulmer is very definitely a guitar soloist, supported by a rhythm section and, occasionally, by a horn section and background vocalists.

    Mr. Ulmer's rhythm section (Amin Ali on electric bass and G. Calvin Weston on drums) has developed a style that is as original as his guitar playing. They pump out kinetic dance rhythms without constricting Mr. Ulmer's freedom of movement; in fact, Mr. Ali often seems to be feeding the guitarist ideas, and Mr. Weston has come up with some fascinating, multidirectional drum patterns that are wholly his own. On four of the 10 selections on ''Free Lancing'' Mr. Ulmer, Mr. Ali a nd Mr. Weston work as a trio, and their redefinition of rock's familiar ''power trio'' instrumenta tion is both radical andutterly assured. Three more selections add a horn section drawn from the best of New York's jazz avant-garde; each of the players (Olu Dara on trumpet, Oliver Lake on alto saxophon e and David Murray on tenor saxophone) gets a brief solo. The three remaining selections find Mr. Ulmer singing, with second guitar by Ronnie Drayton and three backup vocalists. His songs are as melo dically fresh as his instrumental compositions; ''Where Did All th e Girls Come From'' is catchy enough to get some airplay, though it doesn't compromise Mr. Ulmer's originality one bit.

    Recording for independent labels before graduating to Columbia did not do Mr. Ulmer any harm. In fact, his earlier albums now sound like rehearsals for ''Free Lancing,'' which is the most intelligently balanced and cleanly recorded of all his disks. He record ed his first album, ''Tales of Captain Black'' (Artists House Records), in 1978, with Or nette Coleman playing alto saxophone and co-producing. The bassist, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, plays spectacularly, and Ornette Coleman's son Denardo is a capable drummer, but this is not a rhythm section that shows off Mr. Ulmer to best advantage. The album is notable for h is exciting guitar playing and for Mr. Coleman's solos, and for the i ndividual contributions of the members of the rhythm section, but it does not offer a coherent ensemble style.

    By January 1980, when Mr. Ulmer recorded ''Are You Glad to Be in America?'' for Britain's Rough Trade label, he had made considerable progress in this direction. The rhythm section and horn section were the same players who appear on ''Free Lancing,'' but with a second drummer, Ronald Shannon Jackson, added. The problem with the second album is a somewhat murky sound; the performances are first-rate. Now that Mr. Ulmer is recording for Columbia, another major label has been negotiating for the right to release ''Are You Glad to Be in America?'' in this country.

    ''No Wave,'' Mr. Ulmer's third album, was recorded for the German Moers Music label in June 1980. It is more a free-form jam session than a program of tightly arranged compositions and is the least successful of the guitarist's recordings. Mr. Ulmer is most effective when he delivers terse, condensed performances of his distinctive compositions. But not even the performances on ''Are You Glad to be in America?,'' the best of the earlier records, matches the lucid organization and inspired improvising captured on ''Free Lancing.'' Moving to a major label can sometimes stifle an artist's creativity, but Mr. Ulmer was ready for the move and has made an album that should delight the fans he now has and win him many new ones. 
     
    James Blood Ulmer – Free Lancing (1981): 
     
    VIDEO:  
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3Z7NmrPlIs&list=RDG3Z7NmrPlIs&start_radio=1&t=1754s
     

    A1 00:00 Timeless 
    A2 04:24 Pleasure Control 
    A3 09:26 Night Lover 
    A4 14:51 Where Did All The Girls Come From ? 
    A5 19:34 High Time 
     
    B1 23:37 Hijack 
    B2 28:23 Free Lancing 
    B3 33:03 Stand Up To Yourself 
    B4 36:50 Rush Hour 
    B5 42:23 Happy Time 
     
    All compositions and arrangements by James Blood Ulmer 
     
    James Blood Ulmer--Guitar 
    G. Calvin Weston--Drums 
    Amin Ali--Electric Bass
     
    Alto Saxophone – Oliver Lake (A5, B1, B4) 
    Backing Vocals – Diane Wilson (A2, A4, B3), Irene Datcher (A2,A4, B3) and Zenobia Konkerite (A2, A4, B3) 
     
    Tenor Saxophone – David Murray (A5, B1, B4) Trumpet – Olu Dara  (A5, B1, B4) 
    Vocals – James Blood Ulmer (A2, A4, B3) 

    James "Blood" Ulmer - Odyssey (Full Album) 
     
    VIDEO:  
     

    James Blood Ulmer - LIVE
     
    VIDEO:
    io=1  

    James Blood's Music Revelation Ensemble - "Street Bride"

    Composition and arrangement by James Blood Ulmer

    VIDEO:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6t3t191iNM&list=RDb6Sg9wZanfU&index=2

    James Blood's Music Revelation Ensemble Live @ du Maurier Ltd. Downtown (aka. Toronto) Jazz Festival 1993 performing "Street Bride" 
     
    James Blood Ulmer - guitar 
    Amin Ali - bass 
    Cornell Rochester - drums
     
    http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/He-s-Been-Working-On-the-Third-Rail-Jazz-2832096.php

    He's Been Working On the Third Rail / Jazz guitarist Ulmer gets big-name band ready to roll

    by Dan Ouellette 
    July 20, 1997
    San Francisco Chronicle 

    It's been several years since intrepid guitarist James "Blood" Ulmer brought his funk-ignited jazz to town. Why so long? According to the New York-based avant-funkster, it's been a case of waiting "for the right moment and the right conditions." Hot on the heels of a cooking new album, "South Delta Space Age," by his star-studded band Third Rail -- appropriately named for a subway's power source that can de liver the jolt of your life -- he figured the time was finally right to take a cruise to the West Coast.

    "I've been working on lots of different projects over the last couple of years," the raspy-voiced Ulmer said shortly before embarking with the group to perform at the North Sea Jazz Festival in the Netherlands. "But I had to get on that third rail to find my way back to San Francisco."

    Originally conceived as a power trio with bassist Bill Laswell and drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson, Third Rail played one concert in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1990 and slayed the crowd. But then the band got off track. "We went into the studio and cut a bunch of tunes, but nothing ever happened," said Ulmer, who admits to still being perplexed by the lack of forward motion.

    "You know, I don't even know what happened. Something just didn't work out. But I couldn't stop thinking about it. One day I called Bill and said this thing had been lingering too long. He agreed, and we got the project rolling again." 
     
    With the recent resurgence of interest in jazz-funk crossover, especially among younger audiences hungering for edgy grooves, the timing couldn't have been better. 
     
    After Laswell scored a deal with a Japanese label, he and Ulmer enlisted a group of simpatico musicians to put the spark and sizzle into the guitarist's compositions: former Parliament-Funkadelic keyboardist Bernie Worrell, jazz-gospel organist Amina Claudine Myers and ex-Meters drumming ace Joseph "Zigaboo" Modeliste (spelled by Jerome Brailey for Third Rail's appearance at Bimbo's 365 Club this Saturday).

    "In the past, I worked a lot with younger musicians, being a schoolteacher to them," Ulmer said. "With -- Third Rail, I was playing with people I didn't have to worry about. Everybody has their own musical concept. I didn't have to tell them anything. Can you imagine me telling Zigaboo what beats to play? I presented my music, and he let me know the beat. And Bernie, all he needs to know is the name of the song and he's gone. That's why we're the Third Rail. It's the power. I never went head-on like this before." 
     
    "South Delta Space Age," which Antilles licensed to release in the United States, is both tethered to earth with Delta blues grit and spun into orbit with soaring improvisation. The band offers a mesmerizing take on hip-hopper Schooly D's "Dusted" and builds the funk fire with "Funk All Night," "Itchin' " and "First Blood," free-spirited and intoxicating Ulmer originals fueled with jazz and soaked in blues, rap, soul and rock.

    Laswell's and Modeliste's phat beats are charged, and there's plenty of open space for Worrell's sonic booms on organ and clavinet. But Ulmer firmly commands center stage with his grainy party-time vo cals and distinctive blues-toned guitar voicings -- searing riffs, blistering single-note runs, quaking chords and a ton of tonal distortion. Ulmer came up through the jazz ranks in the early '70s as a disciple of Ornette Coleman and his school of harmolodics. After exercising his groove licks in R&B organ ensembles, the guitarist took his music to a new level while gigging with Coleman's group Prime Time.

    During this period, Ulmer developed his own style, which he called harmolodic diatonic funk, and set out to explore a new musical language informed by the organic rhythms of country blues and the dissonant outbursts of avant-jazz. In the wake of his debut solo album, "Tales of Captain Black," produced by Coleman, Ulmer was heralded as the missing guitar link between Wes Montgomery and Jimi Hendrix.

    Ulmer continues to acknowledge the impact of Coleman with his latest solo album, "Music Speaks Louder Than Words" (DIW/Koch Jazz), a rousing collection dominated by compositions written by the free-jazz maestro. "I set out to do something special for Ornette," Ulmer said. "I wanted to express his music from the perspective of a guitarist." Interspersed in the collection are three of Ulmer's funk tunes, pop- ish excursions that instead of disrupting the harmolodic flow actually serve as palate-cleansing pauses. A highlight is "Rap Man," Ulmer's perky tune that in the funky chorus sounds like a cross between the "Batman" and "Ghostbusters" themes.

    Ulmer promises to mix a couple of those tunes into the show at Bimbo's. "That's what Third Rail is all about: expressing my verbal music. I've been recording instrumental music for Ry Cooder's soundtrack of Wim Wender's new film 'The End of Violence' and touring with John Zorn and Pharoah Sanders in another one of my projects, Music Revelation Ensemble. But with Third Rail I get to sing. That's when I get to have a lot of fun." 

    THIRD RAIL The band performs Saturday at Bimbo's 365 Club, 1025 Columbus Ave., San Francisco. Last Poets open at 9 p.m. Tickets: $20. Call (415) 474-0365. 

    Music Revelation Ensemble - Burghausen, Germany, 2003-05-09 (full)



    alexsh      
      
    The Music Revelation Ensemble feat. Pharoah Sanders Wackerhalle, 34th Internationale 
     
    Jazzwoche Burghausen/Germany 
    9th May 2003
     
    VIDEO:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFcYdO7X-q0
     
     
     
    JAMES BLOOD ULMER QUARTET:
     
    Pharoah Sanders, tenor saxophone 
    James Blood Ulmer, guitar, vocals 
    Calvin Jones, bass 
    Cornel Rochester, drums 
     
    ALL COMPOSITIONS AND ARRANGEMENTS BY JAMES BLOOD ULMER: 
     
    1. Law 
    2. High Yellow 
    3. Sweet 
    4. Little Red Rooster 
    5. My Prayer 
    6. Eviction 
    7. Evidence
     
     
    by David Shettler
    August 26, 2015
    Detroit Metro Times 

    James "Blood" Ulmer is a singularity. Beginning with his explosive first solo LP Tales of Captain Black in 1979, he has relentlessly pursued his own unique artistic vision. With that first single statement, he solidified his rank as a prince of the American avant-garde. But it took a while to get to that point. His development into a juggernaut of independent musical expression was one of the reasons we looked forward to speaking with him.

    Ulmer has maintained a healthy relationship with the city of Detroit since the 1960s, when he lived here under the auspices of finding himself creatively, until just last summer, when he presented a solo guitar performance at DIA. Ulmer performs at the Detroit Jazz Festival on Saturday, Sept. 5. In order to present the interview in full, we're publishing it one week early.


    Metro Times: How did you get into music? When you were younger, what got you into music?

    Ulmer: Wait a minute. I'm 75 years old, and I never did nothing but play music.

    MT: So it just happened?

    Ulmer: No, I don't remember what. I have just been playing music all my life.

    MT: It was just there?

    Ulmer: I don't understand that question. I don't know, I think music is probably something that is a part of a person's makeup, it's what you're gonna do. I don't know how to answer that question.

    MT: No that was a perfect answer. [laughs] You're coming to Detroit, but you've spent some time here before. 
     
    Ulmer: I lived in Detroit for five years.

    MT: I understand that you did some session work and taught at the Jazz Workshop?

    Ulmer: The name of the place was the Detroit Metro Art Complex, a place where everybody can come and experience music — children growing up, whatever. Any instrument they wanted to play; I was in charge of the guitar department.

    MT: So you were teaching children, adults, everybody?

    Ulmer: Well not children; Detroit don't have children. [laughs] Young bloods, young groups, young fellas playing music, and older people too. Some people already playing music would come and see what the complex was offering.
     
    MT: Were you in there with dudes like the Tribe, Phil Ranelin, those kinds of dudes?

    Ulmer: Phil was one on the trombone, Sam Sanders played the saxophone, and Marcus Belgrave, plus a lot of other brothers I can't bring to mind right now.

    MT: Maybe Wendell Harrison?

    Ulmer: Yeah I think so, yeah. Anybody that was in Detroit that played an instrument was in it, I guess. I stayed in Detroit for five years. I didn't go on the road or out of town or anything.

    MT: You went to New York after that.

    Ulmer: I went to New York, and I've been in New York ever since.

    MT: I know a lot of people that when they got to the 1980s and all the changes that were happening, they got shell-shocked by the music industry. But it seems like you just thrived in the '80s. You did what you wanted and were putting out tons of records, and making this beautiful music. And you didn't care what anybody else was doing.

    Ulmer: That's true, yes.

    MT: It seems like you never rest on your laurels and are always looking for something that you can create new.

    Ulmer: That's why I stayed in Detroit, to figure out how to do that. I came to Detroit in the '60s, '65, '66. I studied music and explored my own self at that point. I was playing on the road with organ players before I came to Detroit.

    MT: Oh yeah, with John Patton?

    Ulmer: I made a record with John Patton while I was in Detroit and he was one of the reasons I left Detroit. I went to play with Patton in New York.

    MT: OK. It's coming together. So, what do you think about rock 'n' roll?

    Ulmer: Rock 'n' roll. I don't know. I've never played rock 'n' roll. I think rock 'n' roll came out of blues. That's the only thing I know about it.

    MT: You just rock so hard. I've seen you make heartbreakingly beautiful string music, and I've seen you just destroy a stage with the rock 'n' roll. What are you going to bring to Detroit for jazzfest?

    Ulmer: Let me get that straight. You've heard me do some rock 'n' roll?

    MT: Well, I would call it that, yes. I mean, you were rocking. [laughter] You rock, dude.

    Ulmer: What time? What year was that? You're talking about Detroit? The first record I made was called Tales of Captain Black, produced by Ornette Coleman. That was my first record and my first admission into standing alone on my own music, playing with no one but my own self, and in my own way.

    That's what you call rock — I call it harmolodic funk. I was introduced to harmolodics from Ornette Coleman. He told me I was a natural harmolodic player. It's total rebellion against Western music. If you know the system of Western music and how the music is played, it's rebelling against that. The laws and the rules are a little different. Most people try to call it free music, but it's not free music.

    MT: What do you do all day? You play guitar all day?

    Ulmer: Boy, I tell you, I'm 75 years old. Play this damn guitar every day? I work on what I'm doing. I started playing guitar at 4 years old. I've been playing guitar for 71 years. So, you think I still play guitar all day? I'm working on music most of the time.

    MT: Every day?

    Ulmer: Yeah that's all I do, man. I tell you. Every other minute I would just play music. What do you do?
    MT: I do music.

    Ulmer: You do anything else?

    MT: Well, I've got two kids.

    Ulmer: I mean, you do anything else to feed them?

    MT: I do a bit of woodworking too.

    Ulmer: Well shit, I've got seven children, and I had to feed them all through music.

    MT: That's beautiful. It's getting harder these days to do that because records are different, and the industry is different.

    Ulmer: If you have something you want to do, I don't think things have changed at all. A lot of people before now used to play music and had a day job and all kinds of shit — play music, drive taxis. Music was a hobby. Everybody was playing an instrument. I can't explain it.

    MT: If you have it in you, you just have to do it. It's not a choice.

    Ulmer: You don't have nothing else to do. There you go. It ain't like something you choose. Wow.

    MT: What are you going to do in Detroit when you come? Are you bringing a band?

    Ulmer: I'm bringing the Black Music Experience.

    MT: So it's gonna be full-on?

    Ulmer: It's going to be all kinds of shit. I love Detroit. I played at the museum last year, solo.

    MT: You're composing pieces for strings, right?

    Ulmer: I got a project I do with that, yeah. They haven't hired me to do that in Detroit yet. I wish they would; I'd be glad to bring the string quartet there. Harmolodic guitar and strings. I brought the Memphis Blood Blues Band to Detroit before that. This is a different project. I have about five different projects.

    MT: You've got five bands in New York going all at once.
    Ulmer: No, one at a time.

    MT: Well you've got to keep busy.

    Ulmer: I've made 50 records. I revisit records that I made and I find how that works. This year I'm going to revisit my first record, and my second record called Are You Glad to Be in America? I'm playing in Austria in a week or two with the original people on that record made in 1981. I'm revisiting my records, and I'm getting a good response with that.

    MT: You'll be improvising though, right?

    Ulmer: You can't copy the record. I'm just saying you're going to revisit the music that you're playing on the record. People dig the same music all the time, but they can't play the same music the same way every time and that's the way it goes.

    MT: Are you going to revisit a record for Detroit?

    Ulmer: No, I'm not revisiting the record. I'm just revisiting the music that I used to play. It's vocal funk, the same kind of music you thought I play — rock 'n' roll. Rockin', funkin' — you know. Harmolodic funk.

    MT: Who are some of your favorite guitarists that you listen to?

    Ulmer: I don't listen to no damn guitar players. I don't listen to a guitar player. What guitar player would I listen to?
    MT: What do you listen to?

    Ulmer: I don't even know the guitar players. Who plays the guitar? I don't even know. I've played with a few guitar players, but I don't really hang out with guitar players. 
     
    MT: And you tune your guitar in a different way than most people.

    Ulmer: Yeah, no guitar player is using that tuning at all. I have no relation. I'm trying to get some of them to come learn this tuning, but it hasn't happened yet.

    MT: It's just your own thing.

    Ulmer: I've been playing the guitar a long time, man. Like I said, I've been playing the guitar for 71 years.

    MT: That's a pretty good run.

    Ulmer: [laughs] Yeah, it is. So who the fuck am I gonna listen to? Everybody I listened to is dead; everybody I know who played a guitar is dead.

    MT: A lot of people going like that.

    Ulmer: Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. I moved to New York in 1971, and Jimi Hendrix died.

    MT: Jimi was huge, man.

    Ulmer: They made Jimi huge. Jimi Hendrix died 27 years old. He wasn't huge at all. He made three records, and they made a whole spectacle out of Jimi Hendrix. They make a lot of money off of Jimi Hendrix — trying to get his sound through these machines and his guitars and shit. But Jimi Hendrix didn't ever get a chance to get started yet. He didn't even get the chance to get back in New York. He died in London.

    MT: I've got some crazy recordings that they put out after he died.

    Ulmer: Oh, they put out a lot of the shit out after he was dead, I'm telling you. Everything he rehearsed, every concert he ever played at, every back room he played in, they made a record out of it.

    MT: And sold them too.

    Ulmer: Of course. They sold it and sold it. They made an icon out of him. He don't know about it, though. That's the thing. He got much bigger since he was dead. You know, that's a shame people do that to you. I don't want that to happen to me. I want to do the thing I'm doing living, and I want to stop doing it before I'm dead. [laughs]

    MT: Oh, you're gonna take a little break?

    Ulmer: I'm already leaning towards not being a guitarist, but working with people who want to exploit the harmolodic music system. I'll work on music itself. I'm not trying to be a person who plays an instrument, but I try to work on music itself. That's why I write music. I write a lot of music, and, you know, hopefully someone will play it at some point. I'm working on music publishing. Publishing — that's what I want to work on.

    MT: You write it out by hand, or what do you do?

    Ulmer: Well, you can't write it out by toes. You've got to write it, record it, and have it available for people to listen to it and play it. Music is something I can study. I study the harmolodic guitar music.

    MT: Right.

    Ulmer: I can tell you're no journalist.

    MT: You can tell I'm not a journalist?

    Ulmer: That's what I'm saying; I can tell. We're talking a long time. We're talking about all kinds of shit. I feel like I'm talking to my boy who I could play music with or something. You play the drums, right?

    MT: Yes, I play the drums.

    Ulmer: You're gonna get our conversation in the newspaper or something?

    MT: I'll give it to them, and see what they can do with it.

    Ulmer: Well, they're working on the city of Detroit, alright.

    James "Blood" Ulmer and the Black Music Experience featuring Queen Esther performs at the Detroit Jazz Festival on Saturday, Sept. 5 at the Carhartt Amphitheater stage, in downtown Detroit. 
     
    For more information, see detroitjazzfest.com.

    James Blood Ulmer & Music Revelation Ensemble "Sound Check" from 'No Wave': 

    James Blood Ulmer--Guitar, David Murray--Tenor Saxophone, Ronald Shannon Jackson--Drums & percussion & Amin Ali--Bass 

    Düsseldorf, Germany June 1980. From the Moers Music album "No Wave".     
     
    VIDEO:
       

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Blood_Ulmer

    JAMES BLOOD ULMER
    From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


    PHOTO: Ulmer performs in Innsbruck in 2011 with Charles Burnham and Warren Benbow.

    James "Blood" Ulmer (February 8, 1940 – June 3, 2026) was an American jazz, free funk and blues guitarist and singer. He played a Gibson Byrdland guitar.

    Life and career

    Willie James Ulmer[3] was born in St. Matthews, South Carolina, United States on February 8, 1940.[4][5] 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.[4]

    In the early 1970s, Ulmer joined Ornette Coleman; he was the first electric guitarist to record and tour extensively with Coleman.[4] 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 appearance on Arthur Blythe's two consecutive Columbia albums, Lenox Avenue Breakdown (1979) and Illusions (1980), was followed by Ulmer's signing to that label. That resulted in three albums: Free Lancing, Black Rock, and Odyssey, which was the inaugural release of Odyssey The Band with drummer Warren Benbow and violinist Charles Burnham. The trio was called "avant-gutbucket" by music critic Bill Milkowski to describe the music as "conjuring images of Skip James and Albert Ayler jamming on the Mississippi Delta."[citation needed]

    Ulmer formed Music Revelation Ensemble around 1980, co-led with David Murray for the first decade and lasting into the 1990s.[4] Later versions of the band included Arthur Blythe, Sam Rivers, Pharoah Sanders, and John Zorn. In the 1980s he co-led the quartet Phalanx with saxophonist George Adams. Ulmer has recorded as a leader, including blues-oriented albums produced by Vernon Reid: Memphis Blood, No Escape from the Blues, Bad Blood in the City, and Birthright.

    He was a judge for the 8th annual Independent Music Awards to support independent musicians.[6][7]

    In a 2005 DownBeat interview, he said guitar technique stagnated after the death of Jimi Hendrix.[8] He stated technique could advance "if the guitar would stop following the piano" and indicated he tunes his guitar strings to A.[8]

    In 2009, Ulmer started the label American Revelation. In spring 2011, he joined James Carter's organ trio as a special guest with Nicholas Payton on trumpet for a six-night stand of performances at Blue Note New York.


    James Blood Ulmer, Arts for Art - Vision Festival 2024. Photo by Marek Lazarski

    Ulmer died in Manhattan on June 3, 2026, at the age of 86.[9][10]
     
    Discography
    As leader

    Tales of Captain Black (Artists House, 1979)

    Are You Glad to Be in America? (Rough Trade, 1980)

    Free Lancing (Columbia, 1981)

    Black Rock (CBS, 1982)

    Odyssey (CBS, 1983)

    Part Time (Rough Trade, 1984)

    Live at the Caravan of Dreams (Caravan of Dreams, 1986)

    America – Do You Remember the Love? (Blue Note, 1987)

    Blues Allnight (Bellaphon, 1990)

    Revealing (In+Out, 1990)

    Black and Blues (DIW, 1991)

    Blues Preacher (DIW, 1993)

    Live at the Bayerischer Hof (In+Out, 1994)

    Music Speaks Louder than Words (DIW, 1995)

    Plays the Music of Ornette Coleman (DIW, 1996)

    Harmolodic Guitar with Strings (DIW, 1997)

    Reunion (Knitting Factory, 1997)

    Forbidden Blues (DIW, 1998)

    Memphis Blood: The Sun Sessions (Label M, 2001)

    Blue Blood (Innerhythmic, 2001)

    No Escape from the Blues: The Electric Lady Sessions (Hyena, 2003)

    Guitar Music (Derni̬re Bande, 2003) Рwith Rodolphe Burger

    Back in Time (Pi, 2005)


    Birthright (Hyena, 2005)


    Bad Blood in the City: The Piety Street Sessions (Hyena, 2007)

    In and Out (In+Out, 2009)

    Black Rock Reunion (American Revelation, 2009)

    Blues Odyssey (American Revelation, 2010)

    Live at Birdland (American Revelation, 2010)

    Freelancing Live (American Revelation, 2013)

    With Music Revelation Ensemble

    No Wave (Moers, 1980)

    Music Revelation Ensemble (DIW, 1988)

    Elec. Jazz (DIW, 1990)

    After Dark (DIW, 1992)

    In the Name of... (DIW, 1994)

    Knights of Power (DIW, 1996)

    Cross Fire (DIW, 1997)

    With Phalanx

    Got Something Good for You (Moers Music, 1986)

    Original Phalanx (DIW, 1987)

    In Touch (DIW, 1988)

    Phalanx Live (American Revelation, 2013)

    With Third Rail

    South Delta Space Age (Antilles, 1995)
    As sideman

    Rashied Ali, Rashied Ali Quintet (Survival, 1973)

    Karl Berger, Conversations (In+Out, 1994)

    Arthur Blythe, Lenox Avenue Breakdown (Columbia, 1979)

    Arthur Blythe, Illusions (Columbia, 1980)

    James Carter, Out of Nowhere (Half Note, 2005)

    Ornette Coleman, Celebrate Ornette (Song X 2016)

    Ry Cooder, The End of Violence (Outpost, 1997)

    Jayne Cortez, Borders of Disorderly Time (Bola, 2003)

    Joe Henderson, Multiple (Milestone, 1973)

    Hank Marr, Sounds from the Marr-Ket Place (King, 1964)

    David Murray, Children (Black Saint, 1985)

    David Murray, Recording N.Y.C. 1986 (DIW, 1986)

    John Patton, Accent on the Blues (Blue Note, 1969)

    John Patton, Memphis to New York Spirit (Blue Note, 1996)

    Rochester/Veasley Band, One Minute of Love (Gramavision, 1985)

    The Roots, Phrenology (MCA, 2002)

    Juma Sultan, Whispers from the Archive (Porter, 2012)

    Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Show Stopper (Gramavision, 1983)

    World Saxophone Quartet, Political Blues (Justin Time, 2006)

    Frank Wright, Blues for Albert Ayler (ESP Disk, 2012)

    Larry Young, Lawrence of Newark (Perception, 1973)

     
     


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