Harmolodic Guitar with Strings is an album by American guitarist James Blood Ulmer recorded in 1993 and released on the Japanese DIW

DIW Records

DIW Records is a Japanese record label. It is a subsidiary label of Disc Union and specializes in jazz and avant garde music. Kazunori Sugiyama was an executive producer for the label before starting Tzadik Records with John Zorn.-Discography:...

 label. The album features Ulmer on guitar with the Indigo String Quartet

String quartet

A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...

 performing compositions which expand on Ornette Coleman

Ornette Coleman

Ornette Coleman is an American saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter and composer. He was one of the major innovators of the free jazz movement of the 1960s....

's theory of harmolodics

Harmolodics

Harmolodics is the musical philosophy of jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman and is therefore associated primarily with the jazz avant-garde and the free jazz movement, although its implications extend beyond these limits...

.

Reception

The Allmusic review by Thom Jurek awarded the album 4½ stars and stated "Throughout the disc there are surprises and long passages of breathtaking beauty. Ulmer's sound and his approach to notational composition are in line with the most inventive of modern composers. His methodology and musical system may be different and uninterested in academic squabbling about harmony and rhythm, but that's ok — he learned a long time ago that if you don't like the way something works musically all you have to do is make up your own musical system. The European academes have nothing on the soulful, sophisticated musicality presented here".

Track listing

All compositions by James Blood Ulmer

1. "Opening" - 1:02
2. "Arena: Church" - 2:29
3. "Arena: Seven Gates" - 0:43
4. "Arena: Arena" - 3:38
5. "Arena: Lights Out" - 1:43
6. "Arena: Church II" - 2:24
7. "Arena: Arena II" - 3:03
8. "Page One: In the Name of..." - 2:42
9. "Page One: Page One" - 1:42
10. "Page One: Blood and John" - 3:11
11. "Page One: Page One II" - 0:39
12. "Page One: Grand Finale" - 1:35
13. "Maya" - 10:35
14. "Black Sheep: Prologue" - 0:33
15. "Black Sheep: By-Pass" - 1:53
16. "Black Sheep: Caretaker" - 1:54
17. "Black Sheep: Lost One" - 1:41
18. "Black Sheep: Black Sheep" - 1:03
19. "Black Sheep: Epilogue" - 0:42
20. "Theme From Captain Black" - 7:57
    • Recorded at at Eastside Sound, NYC on June, 29, July 9 and July 18, 1993

Personnel

• James Blood Ulmer - guitar
  Guitar
  The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
  
  , vocals
• Gayle Dixon - first violin
• John Blake
  John Blake, Jr.
  John Blake, Jr. is an American jazz violinist. He has performed most prominently as a sideman in groups led by Grover Washington, Jr. in the late 1970s) and McCoy Tyner , as well as led his own groups.-External links:*[ allmusic's inventory of his record appearances]**...
  
   - second violin
  Violin
  The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
  
  
• Ron Lawrence - viola
  Viola
  The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...
  
  
• Akua Dixon Turre - cello
  Cello
  The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...