James Blood Ulmer, the guitarist and singer who redefined what an electric guitar could do in jazz, has died at the age of 86. He passed away on June 3, 2026.
Born Willie James Ulmer in St. Matthews, South Carolina on February 8, 1940, he built a sound critics described as jagged and stinging, paired with a singing voice called raggedly soulful. He came up through soul jazz ensembles in Pittsburgh and Columbus, Ohio, before moving to New York in 1971 and playing with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Joe Henderson, Paul Bley, Rashied Ali, and Larry Young.
His defining partnership came in the early 1970s with Ornette Coleman. Ulmer became the first electric guitarist to record and tour extensively with Coleman, and he credited the saxophonist as a major influence, while Coleman’s fusion-oriented work owed its own debt to Ulmer’s playing. That harmolodic foundation ran through everything he touched.
Ulmer signed to Columbia after appearing on Arthur Blythe’s albums, releasing ‘Free Lancing’, ‘Black Rock’, and ‘Odyssey’, the last of which launched Odyssey The Band with drummer Warren Benbow and violinist Charles Burnham. He formed the Music Revelation Ensemble around 1980, co-led with David Murray, and later co-led the quartet Phalanx with saxophonist George Adams.
His later years leaned into the blues, with a run of acclaimed albums produced by Vernon Reid, including ‘Memphis Blood’, ‘No Escape from the Blues’, ‘Bad Blood in the City’, and ‘Birthright’. He even crossed into hip-hop, lending his guitar to The Roots’ ‘Phrenology’ in 2002, and started his own label, American Revelation, in 2009.
Ulmer leaves behind a singular catalog that bridged the Mississippi Delta and the avant-garde, a guitarist who never stopped pushing the instrument forward. He was 86.