Personnel: James Blood Ulmer (guitar); Ornette Coleman (alto saxophone); Jamaaladeen Tacuma (bass); Denardo Coleman (drums).
Producers: Ornette Coleman, John Snyder.
Reissue producers: James Blood Ulmer, Kazunori Sugiyama.
Recorded at RPM Sound, New York, New York on December 5, 1978.
Ulmer developed his intense and utterly distinctive guitar style in Ornette Coleman's free-funk band, Prime Time. The legendary saxophonist joins Ulmer on TALES OF CAPTAIN BLACK, a breathtaking excursion into an uncharted galaxy of sound. TALES is probably Ulmer's finest and most consistent offering. His raw, distorted guitar sound and piercing, angular lines dance around and do battle with Coleman's spare, soulful abstractions.
Such pieces as the funk-colored title cut and the primal, surging "Woman Coming" alternate with compositions of ghostly, disjointed beauty like "Moons Shine" and "Nothing To Say" (in which Coleman quotes his own "Lonely Woman"). The record is distinguished by the powerful drumming of Denardo Coleman (Ornette's son) and dazzling bass playing by Jamaaladeen Tacuma, one of the finest instrumentalists in the business. Though not for the faint of ear, this is inventive, challenging, and remarkable music of an extremely high caliber.