JASON RICCI & NEW BLOOD Source: Cashville Date: 04/2008 Writer: Keith A. Gordon

Nashville is privileged to attract so many talented musicians to the city, it often takes them for granted. True, Music City's homegrown talents ain't chopped liver, but the Reverend welcomes all newcomers to the city with open arms. It's my hypothesis — lab-tested for your comfort — that the presence of talented immigrants like, for instance, Jack White, raise the bar for all involved and help make Nashville a robust, more creative music scene. It certainly helps raise the city's profile and maybe makes it a little easier for the next hot band in town to get a record deal.

Bluesman Jason Ricci is one of the newest talents to land in the Music City, and we all have cause to celebrate. Ricci is a musician of no little vision, a skilled harmonica player who is kind of a cross between Sonny Boy Williamson and John Popper of Blues Traveler. A veteran with lots of experience in the trenches, Ricci and his band have been true road warriors, playing 300+ dates a year for years on end. Although he's relatively young for a blues artist — only 33 years old — Ricci has squeezed a lot of living out of life so far, conquering personal demons and traveling extensively before choosing Nashville as his new home.

Aside from his tender age, Ricci is another rarity in the blues world — an openly gay white man in an art form brimming over with testosterone. Hell, even blues ladies like Big Mama Thornton scared the hell out of people; a glance from Howlin' Wolf would leave you curled up in a corner in the fetal position crying for yer mammy. But Ricci has made his flamboyance work for him, his appearance bolstered by his music. While his tattoos play to the macho side of the audience, his crazed, brightly-colored hair may seem a bit — shall we say, off-putting — until he grabs that harp and begins blasting out some of the meanest, dirtiest, rocking blues that you'll ever hear. An onstage dynamo, by the end of the show Ricci has 'em eating out of his hands.

Rocket Number 9 is Ricci's sixth album with his band New Blood, but the first that has actually been released by a proper label — Eclecto Groove, a Delta Groove imprint — rather than on his own. The response to Rocket Number 9, which was released a few months back and has been simmering on the Reverend's box ever since, has been overwhelmingly positive; the album receiving critical acclaim from blues and rock publications alike.

With an eye towards pushing against the conventional boundaries of blues music, Ricci and New Blood have delivered a strong set of songs that cut across fan expectations as well. There's enough stellar fretwork and solid rhythms to appeal to a rock audience, but when Ricci hits the trigger on his harp, he reels in the blues traditionalists — hook, line and sinker. The improvisational nature of blues harp fits easily into the jam band aesthetic, bringing the Phish and Widespread Panic fans into the fold.

Rocket Number 9 opens with "The Rocker," a song about the wages of drug addiction. A guitar riff reminiscent of primo James Gang opens the door; then Ricci's squealing harp kicks in and you know that you're in for one helluva trip. The tune bobs-and-weaves like a championship boxer, driven by Ricci's imaginative harp playing and Shawn Starsky's extraordinary guitar work. Ricci's naturally coarse vocals spit out the sordid tale of the addict's relationship to the poison he craves. It's a potent song, a powerful lyrical statement, and a rocking tune.

In much the same vein as the opener, "I'm A New Man" is a bit of a letdown after "The Rocker," but it's a cool, soulful number that reminds of Blues Traveler with some jazzy fretwork and funky vocals that belie the junkie's lament of the lyrics. The epic "Loving Eyes" ventures into all kinds of undiscovered blues territory. The song's eleven-anna-quarter minutes encompass emotions ranging from an understated opening, with fallow vocals and sparse instrumentation, to the gentle evolution of a funky beat and swaggering riffs approximately half-way through, to the song's explosive conclusion with chiming modal six-string leads and crashing rhythms leading into Ricci's manic closing harp work. By the time that the song drops back into its opening lethargy, the listener is wrung out and wasted by the experience.

The remaining 50-or-so minutes of Rocket Number 9 provide an equally unpredictable, albeit wildly enjoyable ride, the music running the gamut from the funky, jazzbo, sax-driven, big band shuffle of "Dodecahedron" to the Chicago-styled "Mr. Satan," a tribute to bluesman Sterling "Satan" McGhee (of Satan & Adam fame). "Deliver Us" is a more traditionally-styled blues number with swinging harp-guitar interplay, "The Blow Zone Layer" hits your ears like vintage Sonny Boy roaring through the airwaves on KFFA, and "Snow Flakes And Horses," influenced by the Kimbrough family's contributions to the blues, is a down-and-dirty, Hill Country-styled rave-up. No doubt that Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside are both dancing in the celestial juke-joint to the raucous sound of this one. Sun Ra's space-jazz classic "Rocket Number 9" is re-imagined here as an odd, chaotic freeform jam that brings to mind Col. Bruce Hampton's out-of-body experiences.

Ricci's New Blood band is vastly underrated as a blues outfit. In traditional blues (especially the Chicago variety), the harp and the guitar are lead instruments and everybody else kind of gets out of the way and plays supporting rhythms. From Little Walter and James Cotton to George Smith, Muddy Waters' bands always had a monster mouthpiece on hand to parry with Muddy's or Jimmy Rogers' axe. Shawn Starsky is the perfect foil for Ricci, an inventive guitarist who achieves great tone, has a long reach, and can express a number of styles, from psychedelic and funk to rocking or blue. The rhythm section of bassist Todd Edmunds and drummer Ron Sutton are spectacular, often by their absence. Edmunds' bass notes are rich and timely, while Sutton's background fills and clever use of his cymbals adds an essential dimension to the music.

Although Ricci is a life-long fan of traditional blues, an acolyte of harp masters like Little Walter and Sonny Boy Williamson (II), and vetted in the Mississippi Hill Country style by no less than Junior and R.L. themselves, Jason is also part punk-rocker at heart, and it's this dichotomy that drives his unique sound. He plays like the masters of yore, yet comes up with imaginative phrasing and new ways of expression that take the blues into an aggressive and entertaining new universe.