JASON RICCI & NEW BLOOD Source: WNY Date: 06/2008 Writer: Bob Silvestri

Jason Ricci is an up and coming young blues artist who along with his band New Blood have released a new disc titled Rocket Number 9. A heavy blowing harp player Ricci is following after a hard rock blues sound more along the lines of Foghat and Mountain. Check out "The Rocker" a doper's lament about the love/hate relationship addicts have with their dope, the funky sax work out on "Dodecahedron" the solid blues of both "Deliver Us" and "The Way I Hurt Myself" and the reverb drenched "Sonja". One caveat, after eleven well written and performed tracks, the closing title cut, written by the late Sun Ra, and clocking in at over ten minutes long comes across as self indulgent as it meanders along as freewheeling acid jazz groove and seems out of place among the other cuts.