Expandable Sound is a documentary project about how knowledge and value are created and shared through jazz and improvised music. On each episode of the show, we feature one of our favorite musicians in their own words, alongside uninterrupted recordings of their music and the music of their peers.

Questions we focus on in this episode:  Is music something you create, or something you find? Where does the blues come from? And what exactly is a guitar activist?

In this epsiode: James Blood Ulmer. Born in 1940 in St. Matthews North Carolina, as a young man Blood played in organ quartets around the midwest, until he moved to New York in the 1970s. There, he joined Ornette Coleman’s quartet and revolutionized his approach to the guitar. Blood has toured with David Murray, Arthur Blythe, Pharoah Sanders, Don Cherry, and many many more. Recently, he’s released a series of albums reinterpreting blues classics in his own, totally original way.