Re: [Harp-L] Jason Ricci Revue from Orlando Blues Society - OBBS

[David Payne <dmatthew@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

As a former West Virginia Press Association award-winning investigative journalist (until a couple months ago), I learned to pick up on a lot of things. Besides investigating stuff and whatnot, there was this dynamic where everybody, especially public officials, consistently tried to use the newspaper for their personal attacks, or like the time when we ran a submitted obituary for a guy who was very much alive.
 Do that job long enough, you learn to pick up on certain nuances and motivations. I've got no problem really with the material in the review. I am just curious about its origins.
As a journalist, my standard operating procedure would be, for starters
1) Look for patterns from the messenger. In this case, the messenger has, over the course of several years, expressed a multitude of issues in an ongoing soap opera with J.R., which leads to more questions.
2) Is the message verifiable? I couldn't verify it. It's not on the board on the OBBS Website. But you said "chat room." I can't find any OBBS chat room. If it were posted in a chat room, that remains conveniently unverifiable. But I have never, in my life, seen such a wordy, obviously thought out monologue posted in a real-time chat setting. 
3) Can folks verify the third party whom allegedly wrote the thing actually exists? At the above, I could find nobody named Ford.
3) Are there previous instances where  unverifiable third parties have been involved in this exhange between messenger and the person being discussed? Between those parties, are there nuances in writing, the flow of ideas, or the way they are expressed consistent with both the messenger and the author of the message? When people communicate, their syntax, transitions, how clauses are arranged, etc. are like a thumbprint. For instance, a Hemmingway sentence is not like a Faulker sentence. Just as you can't change your fingerprint, you can't escape the communication fingerprint. I recall one person with an alter ego on another board tried to make himself appear a different person by having the alter ego type every sentence beginning with a lower case letter and the rest of the sentence in UPPER case, plus NO punctuation. 
Simply: if I were to write something as somebody else and this other person accidentally slipped in a word like "prewarify," betwixt" or "opened up a can of whoop..." you'd know it's me. 
I'm not ready to say yet that's what happened here, but all I see leads me to suspect. If anybody wants to take a shot at it, and surely there has to be another English major on this board, I would invite them to take a look in the Harp L archives at the various patterns of themes, how ideas are interwoven with pros and cons are mixed between Mr. Ford's review and things Iceman has written about Jason in the past. I'd love to hear a second opinion offlist.

The message relayed, wherever it came from,  brings up a valid concern, of music drifting away from one's tastes, as country music left me 20 years ago, I understand those concerns. With the harmonica that dynamic is magnified because of the shifts in our community. And we don't all like the shifts. I don't sit around listening to Howard Levy, his stuff does nothing for me. But that's just my tastes. I still know the guy is a genius.

But looking at all through my eyes, appears in this situation, something may be rotten in the state of Denmark. 
Just as folks should consider your past with Jason as a motivation, they should consider as well, while I make a strong attempt to keep objectivity, they should also keep in mind that I consider Jason a close friend in the same way I keep in mind Iceman's pattern of unusual behavior concerning Jason. . 

If this relayed message were posted in a forum, posting a simple link to it would give me, as well as others, additional, valuable  tools to clear up some of these questions that arise when one steps back and looks at the big picture.Perhaps there is no man behind the curtain, I'd just like to know for sure.





Dave



----- Original Message ----
From: "IcemanLE@xxxxxxx" <IcemanLE@xxxxxxx>
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, July 9, 2009 9:11:23 PM
Subject: [Harp-L] Jason Ricci Revue from Orlando Blues Society - OBBS




- DISCLAIMER-  Not my  words - posted on the OBBS chat room


Jason Ricci & New Blood
Interesting evening,  but this was not a blues  show.
Jason Ricciâs persona is all Punk and his performance pretty  much was in
that style. There were lots of young people there to enjoy  it,   more than
show up at some solid blues shows.
Jason, as well as he plays and as good as he is (and he is  indeed
extremely good) isnât playing the kind of harmonica that I would call  blues.  Some
might like the Punk style, but for me the lack of meaningful  syncopation or
creative interplay canât be compensated for by simply playing  louder and
faster.
His Lee Dorsey cover, âEverything I do Gonâ Be  Funky  (From Now On)â was
a chance to break into something different,    but  it wasnât  very funkyâ
.maybe screaming the lyrics isnât the best  approach to Funk.
On the other hand
RJ Harmon, who opened the show, is a different story  all together. His
tuff interplay with his guitar player was really cool on the  opening number.
Almost as gifted a player as Jason, but with a lot more  potential, this
young man was a sensation at the â08 Florida Harp Challenge  doing Sonny Boyâs
immortal âNine Below Zeroâ note for note.
RJ has it covered both ways, the standards and an all new  sound, a kind of
jazz fusion with quick licks hammered out with his guitar  player.  Lotâs
to like about this
OK,   so I sound like an old grouch,   but  is there an Orlando Punk Music
Society?
Can we promote the Blues and bring the tradition to new  listeners?   Maybe
thatâs  what was happening last night, I donât  know.
Think we could get Jason Ricci to listen to some of   James Cottonâs Band
doing  âHold Me Babyâ  with Jimmy Vaughn playing  slide?   He certainly
could play the hell out of thatâââif he wanted  to.
Oh well,
Ford





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