[Harp-L] Jason Ricci- world's best? well...

["samblancato" <samblancato@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Folks, 

 

I read a little of this discussion and I wanted to give my 2 cents worth.
Is JR the world's best?  I don't think so.  JR's playing is certainly
amazing and he's certainly blown me away every time I've heard him play
live.  He's got incredible speed and agility and he plays with soul and
feeling to be sure.  And tone?- forget about it, he's got tone to the  bone.
But is he the best?  I really think that when you get to the level at which
he's play that kind of perspective doesn't make any sense any more.  After
hearing Hummel, Portnoy, Magic Dick, and Lee Oskar play at the recent Blues
Harmonica Malt Down I feel differently about the whole thing.  I really
enjoyed Hummel's and Protnoy's playing much more than Ricci's.  They didn't
do the acrobatics that Ricci does but their playing seemed... I don't know..
more intelligent, more "there".  Does that make sense?  Are these guys
better than JR?  No, it's not that either.  I think at a certain point (one
that I've not reached!) technical skill ceases to be the issue and it comes
down to what you are playing in relation to the people you're playing with.
When you listen to older, more experienced players you hear a kind of
integration that I don't hear in Ricci's playing as often.  I've heard it
but not as much.  It's just a pointless discussion in the end.  It's great
to be excited by a player's performance, to have what he or she is doing
break apart the limits of your understanding of the instrument.  But that's
all that it is.  When I was 12 I thought Elton John was THE WOLD'S GREATEST
PIANIST.  

 

Sam Blancato, Pittsburgh