James Blood Ulmer

Guitarist James "Blood" Ulmer got his start with saxophonist Ornette Coleman, a jazzman most noted for his pioneering efforts with free jazz, and later for harmolodics, an arcane (if influential) theory of collective improvisation. All of which makes Coleman -- and, by extension, Ulmer -- seem pointy-headed and off-putting.

But Ulmer, like Coleman, has his roots in the blues, and it's that...