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Erik Jekabson
Erik Jekabson is a freelance trumpet player, composer, arranger and educator who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is equally busy playing and composing for different bands, leading his own groups, (the Erik Jekabson Sextet, the String-tet and the Electric Squeezebox Orchestra) teaching a wide variety of students and running the Young Musicians Program at the California Jazz Conservatory.
He’s spent time on the road with Illinois Jacquet, John Mayer, Galactic, and the Howard Fishman Quartet, and has performed at such notable venues as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Algonquin Room, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Madison Square Garden, the Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Late Night with David Letterman.
As an arranger and composer, he’s arranged for both vocalists (Madeleine Peyroux, Ani DiFranco, Jane Krakowski, Jackie Ryan, Kenny Washington, Madeline Eastman, Kellye Gray, Kalil Wilson, Sandy Cressman, Raz Kennedy, Rachel Efron and the spoken word artist Avotcja) and instrumental ensembles. (San Francisco Symphony, the BBC Radio Orchestra, Utah Symphony, the Daggerboard Collective, Throttle Elevator Music, and his own Electric Squeezebox Orchestra, which holds a monthly residency at the California Jazz Conservatory in Berkeley.)
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Jason Keiser: Kind of Kenny
by Andrew Gilbert
Over the past decade San Jose guitarist Jason Keiser has carved out a sterling reputation as a bandleader whose musical passions range across North America's expansive soundscape, and this album extends his exploration into arrestingly lyrical territory. After highlighting Woody Shaw's treasure trove of intervallic leaping post-bop gems on 2023's Shaw's Groove, he turns his attention to another undersung trumpet maestro with Kind of Kenny, a deep dive into the ravishing music of Canadian composer Kenny Wheeler (1930-2014).
Continue ReadingJacqui Naylor: Treasures of the Heart
by Nicholas F. Mondello
Jacqui Naylor's Treasure of the Heart sends up fourteen highly unique jewels, with ten of those being original compositions from Naylor and spouse Art Khu and four classics, all offering a wide range of grooves from funk, jazz, and rock. Throughout the date, Naylor exhibits a healthy versatility with her vocal instrument and delivers a lyric interpretation that at times startles. Rodgers and Hart's well-recorded jazz standard, “I Didn't Know What Time It Was," launches things and ...
Continue ReadingTaj Mahal: Savoy
by Steve Yip
Folk/blues practitioner Taj Mahal's Savoy is to be savored. As one of the custodians of the blues, Mahal has long been a legend in his own time. This collection traverses a cultural-musical continuum in an indispensable residency in the annals of Black American music. The namesake of this album--the Savoy on Lenox Avenue in Harlem--was known as The World's Finest Ballroom and Home Of Happy Feet. In the pre-Civil Rights era, the North claimed formal equality, but segregation ...
Continue ReadingJason Keiser: Shaw's Groove
by Jack Bowers
The “Shaw" in guitarist Jason Keiser's album Shaw's Groove is the late great Woody Shaw, one of the more innovative and influential jazz trumpeters of the twentieth century. Even though he lived only forty-four years (he died in May 1989), Shaw was an important role model whose sweeping influence remains strong to this day, both as a player and composer. The first four songs on Shaw's Groove were written by Shaw himself, among the many he composed ...
Continue ReadingTaj Mahal: Savoy
by Dave Linn
Savoy, from Taj Mahal, is the latest entrant in the crowded field of pop music artists trying their hand at the fertile songbook of old big-band, swing-era standards. Unlike most, Mahal's roots show he's well suited to the task. He was born in Harlem in 1942. He grew up in a musical family, and his parents were both involved in the arts. His father was a jazz pianist and arranger, working with Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, and Fletcher Henderson among ...
Continue ReadingDaggerboard & The Skipper: Daggerboard And the Skipper
by Dan McClenaghan
For those who think they can tell an album's sound by its cover, think again in the case of Daggerboard and The Skipper. That cover art seems to have come from the walls of an inner sanctum of a Pre-Columbian pyramid. So what kind of music will that be? It is hard to find information on this release. Daggerboard seems to consist of the workings of percussionist/songwriter Gregory Howe and trumpeter/flugelhornist/songwriter Erik Jekabson, of Throttle Elevator Music fame, ...
Continue ReadingRay Obiedo: Latin Jazz Project Vol. 2
by Richard J Salvucci
Sometimes it is difficult to banish the words of Ecclesiastes from your mind when listening to a recording: “There is no new thing under the Sun." While that may be true of music in particular--one builds on the past, just as in other fields--it is no good reason for not listening or for simple indifference. Gerald Wilson's “Viva Tirado" has been around since the 1970s, and Wilson himself has been quoted as being once surprised by hearing the El Chicano ...
Continue ReadingSF Bay Area Trumpeter-Composer Erik Jekabson Displays His Mastery Of Orchestral Jazz On 'Breakthrough,' To Be Released January 17 On Wide Hive Records
Source:
Terri Hinte Publicity
Erik Jekabson retrains his musical focus in an unfamiliar direction—lush, intricate, ambitious chamber jazz—with Breakthrough, set for a January 17 release on Wide Hive Records. Featuring 15 musicians, the album is the San Francisco Bay Area trumpeter-composer’s first time marrying an orchestral ensemble (in the European sense, using strings, brasses, and reeds) with a jazz rhythm section, a surprising and marked turn toward the Third Stream. (The first single, “Jane Wants to Tell You Something,” will be released January 10.) ...
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Jazz at Holmes Series Announces Dates of Free Summer Concerts
Source:
St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
The Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University has announced a summer schedule of three free concerts during the month of July. The summer series starts on Thursday, July 11 with a performance by singer Feyza Eren and her band. Next up, trumpeter Erik Jekabson, who's from San Francisco, will play with a quartet of local St. Louis musicians on Thursday, July 18. Drummer Maurice Carnes and his group will close out the summer series on Thursday, July 25. All ...
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Art & Architecture Inspire Trumpeter/Composer Erik Jekabson's Sept. 18 Release, "Anti-Mass"
Source:
Michael Bloom Media Relations
Anti-Mass, a chamber-jazz concept album by trumpeter/composer Erik Jekabson, features his String-tet playing music inspired by artwork from the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco. The impressive list of sideman includes Dayna Stephens, tenor sax; Mads Tolling, violin; Charith Premawardhana, viola,; John Wiitala, bass; Smith Dobson on drums and vibraphone; and Jekabson on trumpet and flugelhorn. “I'm a trumpeter, composer and educator based in the San Francisco Bay Area,” says Erik. “Back in 2007, I decided to put together a new ...
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"Crescent Boulevard" a New CD from Trumpeter/Composer Erik Jekabson
Source:
Michael Ricci
San Francisco Bay Area trumpeter Erik Jekabson has released his second CD, Crescent Boulevard following up his debut CD Intersection on Fresh Sound/New Talent. Crescent Boulevard features a cast of Bay Area musicians and Jekabson's original compositions except for one standard, “My Shining Hour." Having toured with Galactic, John Mayer, Illinois Jacquet, the Woody Herman Big Band, Eddy Louiss and the Howard Fishman Quartet, Jekabson has developed a strong musical personality and the music on Crescent Boulevard reflects that—full of ...
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"Intersection, Jekabson's debut on Fresh Sound New Talent, documents the trumpeter's considerable gifts as a cutting-edge jazz player and writer."- David Adler, Jazztimes "A moody and introspective album, Intersection is a must-hear for fans of serious modern improvisation."- All Music Guide
Primary Instrument
Trumpet
Location
San Francisco
Willing to teach
Beginner to advanced
Credentials/Background
Teaching at the Jazzschool in Berkeley,t Los Medanos College, Chabot College,Cal State East Bay, the Stanford Jazz Workshop, Jazzcamp West, Lafayette Jazz Workshop and the Waldorf School in San Francisco.
Photos
Music
Kind of Kenny
From: Kind of KennyBy Erik Jekabson
Organ Grinder
From: Shaw's GrooveBy Erik Jekabson
Blues For Q
From: A Brand New TakeBy Erik Jekabson
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Erik Jekabson
Location: San Francisco
Instrument: Trumpet
Born: March 23, 1973
Publicist: Terri Hinte Publicity
