Home » Jazz Musicians » Erik Jekabson

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.)


Tags

4
Album Review

Taj Mahal: Savoy

Read "Savoy" reviewed 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 ...

37
Album Review

Jason Keiser: Shaw's Groove

Read "Shaw's Groove" reviewed 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 ...

4
Album Review

Taj Mahal: Savoy

Read "Savoy" reviewed 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 ...

9
Album Review

Daggerboard & The Skipper: Daggerboard And the Skipper

Read "Daggerboard And the Skipper" reviewed 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, ...

3
Album Review

Ray Obiedo: Latin Jazz Project Vol. 2

Read "Latin Jazz Project Vol. 2" reviewed 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 ...

3
Album Review

Throttle Elevator Music: Final Floor

Read "Final Floor" reviewed by Chris M. Slawecki


Final Floor marks the last stop of a band that one might say never really was. Throttle Elevator Music was the name given to a jazz-punk studio cooperative project organized and operating from 2011 through 2017 around saxophonist Kamasi Washington, drummer Mike Hughes (aka “Lumpy") and composer and guitarist Gregory Howe. Howe also founded and serves as producer and engineer for Wide Hive Records, the label that recorded and distributed their music. He notes on the back jacket ...

22
Album Review

Throttle Elevator Music: Emergency Exit

Read "Emergency Exit" reviewed by Karl Ackermann


The sub-genre of “punk jazz" has existed—on paper— since the 1970s when Patti Smith proposed a collaboration with Ornette Coleman. That partnership did not materialize. When all the moving pieces are pulled together there is little substance to suggest that the category ever shared specific practices or conventions. Then, in 2012, Throttle Elevator Music emerged with their self-titled debut (Wide Hive Records). The original group was a trio posing as a quintet. Drums and guitars were manned by Mike “Lumpy" ...

Read more articles

Performance / Tour

Jazz at Holmes Series Announces Dates of Free Summer Concerts

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 ...

1

Recording

Art & Architecture Inspire Trumpeter/Composer Erik Jekabson's Sept. 18 Release, "Anti-Mass"

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 ...

77

Recording

"Crescent Boulevard" a New CD from Trumpeter/Composer Erik Jekabson

"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 ...

"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

Concerts

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Treasures of the Heart

Ruby Star Records
2024

buy

Shaw's Groove

OA2 Records
2023

buy

Savoy

Stony Plain Records
2023

buy

Daggerboard And the...

Wide Hive Records
2022

buy

Final Floor

Wide Hive Records
2021

buy

Latin Jazz Project...

Rhythmus Records
2021

buy

Organ Grinder

From: Shaw's Groove
By Erik Jekabson

Blues For Q

From: A Brand New Take
By Erik Jekabson

Similar

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.