JASON RICCI & NEW BLOOD "DONE WITH THE DEVIL" Source: Blues Rag | Baltimore Blues Society Date: 08/2009 Writer: Dennis Rozanski

The Blues got a brand new bag in 2007, courtesy of Jason Ricci.  It came in the brazenly defiant form of Rocket Number 9, a flaming curveball of blue punk-funk, which shockingly – even to Ricci himself burned up the Billboard Blues Charts.  The reedy rollercoaster ride continues through Done With The Devil, although the renegade harpist shows more easily diagnosable signs of the blues.  Like when Willie Dixon’s “As Long As I Have You” mellows down easy or at least as mellow as a sandpaper rasp allows.  When malleable guitarist Shawn Starski grabs the reins of the runaway acoustic chug to “How It Come To Be.”   But conventionality isn’t what you want to hear from this dragster/mad scientist/explorer of the harmonica anyway.

After all, this is New Blood.  So let others follow rules; let Ricci pump the warped adventure of Sun Ra’s merry-go-round “Enlightenment” with a menagerie of chord, diatonic, and polyphonia harps.  Let inventiveness soar on the jazz freedom of “Ptryptophan Pterodactyl”, and hyperactivity jolt the pogo-rock of “I Turned Into A Martian”, andlet fearlessness reign for nine daring minutes when hunting the same prey – Mongo Santamaria’s “Afro Blue” which John Coltrane’s sax famously devoured, even tossing in shards of “My Favorite Things” for good bold measure.  A reward for harmonicats not afraid to jump into the deep end of the pool.