James Blood Ulmer

Now, he's ... he'll pl- play some licks that are pretty accomplished, you know, that are technically very good.

But he's not trying to say, this is funk, but, you know, I'm gonna add harmonotics to it like James Ulmer would or whatever, or I'm gonna take it and then kind of recontextualize it or complicate it.

It's just he's doing it, and some of the complications come from the textures and the effects you can get from the electronics.

Because, you know, at some level this is two-chord music, right? So-

[laughs]

Um, and then last week, the death of James Blood Ulmer.

That's basically what I've been playing on my, uh, phone for the last week.

James Blood Ulmer, one of the greatest jazz guitar players, and, um, really became famous when he played with Ornette Coleman.

A completely different sound.

Harmolodic theory is what they brought to jazz and, um, I, I could s- play that round the clock for, uh, several months.

That's important.

You know, it's, it's not the music you always, always taught to know by m- masters that I c- came up under, like Bobby Bradford and Max Roach and people like that, where you, uh, James Blood Ulmer, you know, where you, the first thing is to d- is to do is master your instrument, and then, then you can figure out what kind of music you wanna play, not figure out what music you wanna be in and kind of fit your instrument.

You have to become, uh, you have to be at the top of your game on the instrument itself, become a virtuoso.

That's the key in any music.