JASON RICCI & NEW BLOOD Source: Blues Revue Date: 12/2007 Writer: Don Wilcox

Parental warning: This CD may not be suitable for adults who view blues as a safe retreat from the angst of their children¹s rock music. Don¹t misunderstand ‹ this is a great album by a harp player who¹s sometimes busier than John Popper, and who¹s unique enough to cause musicians to rethink the use of the instrument almost as dramatically as Hendrix forced us to re-examine the electric guitar. But Jason Ricci¹s music is not for everyone.

Much of Rocket Number 9 comes across like early Rolling Stones projecting 100-watt energy through a 50-watt bulb. Ricci¹s vocal delivery is salacious, aggressive, androgynous, and dangerous as he slurs and smears messages that come across like the Kingsmen¹s ³Louie Louie.² You know it¹s nasty, but you can¹t make out exactly what he¹s doing back there in the shadows. Putting this Young Turk in the same room as a veteran producer could have been like letting a dragonfly into one of those electric bug zappers ‹ a split second,
and he¹s charcoal. But producer John Porter isn¹t your average veteran. Porter handles the dynamics of opening track ³The Rocker² the way he handles Buddy Guy¹s music: At one point the song roars, and then it gets so quiet you could hear a rat pissing on cotton. On the other hand, ³Sonja² and ³Mr. Satan² have the symphonic polish of Roxy Music. The title cut, a Sun Ra cover, is a Willie Wonka-after-midnight adult fairy tale.

Hearing Ricci perform live, I wondered how his Iggy Pop energy would translate on record. But Ricci and Porter have succeeded in crafting an album that looks back without being retro, and that looks forward with an enormously heightened sense of the present.