Erik Jekabson - Breakthrough

[GA Russell]

Erik Jekabson Displays His Mastery of Orchestral Jazz on "Breakthrough," To Be Released January 17 on Wide Hive Records SF Bay Area Trumpeter-Composer Shows Another Side of His Multifaceted Musical Career With a Set of 13 Exquisite Original Compositions, Including 2 Multipart Extended Works, Performed by a Combination Chamber Orchestra - Jazz Combo   CD Release Shows Include Keys Bistro, San Francisco, 1/26; Hillside Club, Berkeley, 3/21   December 2, 2024 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.)   That turn is not happenstance; Jekabson has long been an admirer of contemporary classical music, especially minimalism and its aftermath. “I really like the post-minimalist classical composers, like John Adams and people coming out of that direction utilizing jazz and rock language,” he says. “I like a lot of the ECM moody stuff, and contemporary composers who are pushing the boundaries in all different directions.”   This “pushing the boundaries in all different directions,” of course, is an apt description for what Jekabson has been doing in Northern California for over two decades. It’s no surprise to find him trying something new. Nor that that new frontier would be a writerly one: Jekabson has for many years served as a house composer/arranger for Wide Hive Records. Even knowing all this, though, doesn’t quite prepare one for the delicate construction of album opener “Jane Wants to Tell You Something, Pts. 1 and 2,” with Jekabson’s trumpet declaiming graciously over layers of woodwinds, strings, and rhythm. It’s a fine introduction to such stirring pieces as the suspenseful “A Centered Vibe,” which indeed centers on vibraphonist Dillon Vado); the appropriately soaring, strings-driven “Above the Clouds,” with violinist Mads Tolling and Jekabson seeming to chase each other across the sky; and the mesmerizing 9/8 groove “Washington as a Surveyor,” driven by guitarist Jeffrey Burr and Max Brody but with overlapping melodic lines featuring oboist Matt Renzi and flutist Mary Fettig, as well as Tolling and Jekabson.   Yet more surprises await the listener. For all his fascination with minimalism and post-minimalism, Jekabson takes a maximalist approach to the textural possibilities that this instrumental palette offers. Thus Breakthrough also explores more unusual soundscapes, like the busy pizzicato string conversations of “Sun on the Keys,” the double soprano vocal lines (courtesy of Becca Burrington and Alexis Lane Jensen) of “Speedway Meadow,” the unexpected cameo by tubist Jonathan Seiberlich on “El Don,” and the minimalist, but ever-shifting, accompaniment for Jekabson’s trumpet on the three-part feature “Into the Jungle” (commissioned by the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra). Showing his dexterity with so many ideas, the album’s title is apropos: in terms of sheer accomplishment, this is indeed a breakthrough. Erik Jekabson was born March 23, 1973 in Berkeley, California. But though he grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and is a part of the illustrious musical legacy of Berkeley High School, he is not quite a lifer. After high school, his pursuit of music took him to the Midwest, where he studied at Ohio’s esteemed Oberlin Conservatory; southward to New Orleans, where he paid dues in the cradle of jazz (and played with the New World Funk Ensemble); and across the ocean to France, where he worked with organist Eddy Louiss.   Inevitably, Jekabson’s jazz-inspired wanderings took him to New York, where he spent five years. In that time he toured in the bands led by singers Howard Fishman and John Mayer, worked in an Off-Broadway show, played with the Illinois Jacquet Big Band, co-led (with saxophonist Dan Pratt) the jazz quintet Vista, and made his own debut recording, Intersection. Armed with these bona fides, he returned in 2003 to the Bay Area, where he earned a master’s degree at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.   He's remained there ever since, building a formidable reputation as a trumpeter, composer, arranger, bandleader and educator, working on the faculties of several colleges. He has also helmed several musical projects, recording four albums with the 17-piece Electric Squeezebox Orchestra, which he cofounded; another as co-leader with percussionist John Santos; and eight more under his own leadership, of which Breakthrough is the latest.   CD release shows for Breakthrough include Sun. 1/26 at Keys Bistro, San Francisco; Fri. 3/21 Hillside Club, Berkeley; Sun. and 4/13 Snug Harbour, New Orleans (Quintet).       >>KQED feature on Wide Hive Records (by Andrew Gilbert) here.     

Erik Jekabson Web Site