Solos – The Jazz Sessions – James Blood Ulmer

DIRECTOR:

Daniel K. Berman

STARRING:

James Blood Ulmer

PLOT:

The Jazz Sessions spotlights unaccompanied performances by some of the legends and bright young stars of the jazz world. Designed and recorded specifically for television, SOLOS offers viewers front row seats for an intimate and unique jazz experience. Each program features complete musical pieces, insightful interviews, and behind-the-scenes footage. Shot in stunning HDTV with multiple moving cameras and a medley of elegant cinematic lighting, SOLOS showcases an exciting and dynamic variety of jazz styles - from the blues and boogie-woogie to bebop and the experimental. James "Blood" Ulmer is one of the few guitarists to have 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 Harmelodic theory and plays with a stuttering, vocalic attack; his jagged lines speak with the authority of a free jazz improvisor and the accent of a soul-jazz tenor saxophonist. His solo guitar work is an expressive, hard-edged, loudly amplified hybrid. But Ulmer isn't limited in his musical scope. In these sessions he reveals himself to be an instant inventor of repute on the flute and a memorable songwriter and blues singer with the now classic Are you Glad to be in America. James "Blood" Ulmer: dynamic, dedicated, never to be duplicated - an original.