Jason Ricci Blows April 19th
Posted On:
“Genre-Bending Harpist Jason Ricci at The Green Parrot”.
“His name is Jason Ricci. He plays harp like I can’t explain–except to say that I have not heard the ghost of Butterfield in awhile.” Blueswax magazine
Fiery, passionate, and sometimes compared to Government Mule, The Derek Trucks Band, and other crossover acts, the genre-expanding harmonica virtuoso Jason Ricci and his band return to The Green Parrot on Wednesday, April 19th beginning at 10 pm.
Blues Access magazine says Ricci is “one of the very best harmonica players of his generation… his musical talent …is too great to be denied…. shaking the hips of audiences while rattling the dusty firmament of the Blues/Rock , they’re rapidly attracting fans from the Jam band and Jazz scenes as well as adventurous Blues lovers.”
Jason Ricci has already seen and experienced more than many players do in a lifetime. At 21, he performed the 10th Annual King Biscuit Blues Festival in Helena, Arkansas. In Helena, he won the Sonny Boy Blues Society Contest beating out Michael Burks among others. He lived for a year in Mississippi with Jr. Kimbrough’s son David Malone Kimbrough and was a member of Junior’s band gigging regularly at established clubs and Mississippi juke joints joining often joining R.L. Burnside and family. In 2000, Ricci won the Mars Music store’s nationwide Blues Harp Blow-off beating over 1,000 other competitors.
Besides being the only professed gay harmonica player on the blues circuit, Ricci is also one of very few players pioneering a technique known to harp enthusiasts as over-blowing. Over-blowing enables a harmonica to play anything that a guitar or any instrument can play allowing the player a complete three-octave chromatic scale.
The Green Parrot Bar is the Southernmost Center for Culture, at the corner of Southard and Whitehead Streets, and at www. greenparrot. com. For additional information call 294-6133.
