Re: [Harp-L] Jason Ricci

["Rick Dempster" <rick.dempster@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Yes. I wouldn't choose to use Jason's technique to play the kind of music he plays; same goes for Levy. However,
hearing what they have managed to do with single reed bends (read 'overblows/draws) has inspired me to push on with my long standing, 
but limited use of this technique.
Likewise, or perhaps I should say, in particular, Chris Michalek's  stuff that he has posted; but then I find Michalek's taste a little closer to my own that the aforementioned,
most excellent players.
RD

>>> "sam blancato" <samblancato@xxxxxxxxxxx> 7/04/2009 13:42 >>>
I had to chime in here on the Jason Ricci love fest.  Somebody on this
thread said Jason makes some acknowledgement of the old dead guys.  My
experience of his playing is that the old, dead guys are very much present
in his playing all the time.  And that's saying a lot because, as most of
you know, Ricci ventures pretty far away from the classic blues cannon in
much of what he's playing now.  

I've seen Ricci five times.  The first time was about six years ago at a
little joint in Youngstown, Ohio called Johnny's.  He played a lot of
straight out blues then as well as other stuff.  After that, I caught him
here, in Pittsburgh, and his set-list has gone farther and farther away from
the straight out blues stuff and more toward the jazz and rock and jam band
stuff.  But there is still a lot of the 'old guys' in his sound.

The third time I saw him I think there were maybe 15 people on the club and
I got a chance to shoot the breeze with Jason and his detailed knowledge of
classic recordings just killed me.  We stared talking about LW's "Blue
Light".  I had brought it up because I was going to talk about the
reverb/distortion break up in the song that sounds so cool and before I even
got that out he said something like "yeah there's that one something,
something draw where the reverb gets ahead of it all and starts breaking
up..." That kind of thing, when somebody is on the same letter of the same
word of the same paragraph of the same page, just kills me.  I honestly felt
like we could have talked about harp for the next 3 hours and he wouldn't
have tired of it. 

There are many great professional harp players who obviously love the
harmonica like Jason does but it's rare that you come across any who wear it
on their sleeve like Jason does.

I have to say here that a lot of what he's playing right now (Rocket #9)
doesn't really speak to me like his older stuff.  Even so, I can still put
#9 on and marvel at the playing.  

Sam Blancato, Pittsburgh     



 

 

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