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Jacob Sacks
Originally from Michigan, Jacob was a 1995 Presidential Scholar In The Arts before he moved to New York City to study with Garry Dial at the Manhattan School Of Music. After graduation in 1998, Jacob was a finalist in the 1999 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition.
In the last 12 years, Jacob has been a member of many different ensembles, recorded several albums, and has toured the United States, Europe, and Canada several times. He has performed with musicians such as Clark Terry, Joe Maneri, Terumasa Hino, Charles Gayle, Eddie Henderson, Christian McBride, Brian Blade, Tony Malaby, Jacob Garchik, Ben Gerstein, Ohad Talmor, Chris Potter, Mark Turner, Ben Monder, Adam Rogers, Kenny Wollesen, Gene Jackson, and Matt Wilson.
Current projects include a longstanding duo with vocalist Yoon Sun Choi, with whom Jacob recently released a critically acclaimed album of Joe Raposo’s music; the quartet “Two Miles A Day” co-led with bassist Eivind Opsvik, featuring violist Mat Maneri and drummer Paul Motian; and a trio with drummer Dan Weiss and bassist Thomas Morgan.
Jacob currently resides in Brooklyn where he is working on several recording projects and teaching 15 or so students in his private practice.
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Dan Weiss Trio: Dedication
by Troy Dostert
Approaching any Dan Weiss album requires a willingness to be challenged. From head-scratching time signatures to fascinating shifts in mood and texture, Weiss gives intrepid listeners a number of pathways into his music, and his releases always justify repeated encounters. Dedication, his latest with his regular trio partners pianist Jacob Sacks and bassist Thomas Morgan, is no exception, although what is most remarkable about this album is Weiss' lyrical sensitivity, a quality which is sometimes overshadowed on his other recordings ...
read moreChet Doxas: Rich in Symbols II
by Troy Dostert
One of Chet Doxas' more distinctive projects, Rich in Symbols (Ropeadope, 2017), involved the saxophonist/clarinetist engaging the 1980s art movement of New York's Lower East Side, composing pieces that reflected his deep interactions with some of those iconic paintings. Now he has done the same with artists from his native Canada: specifically, the Group of Seven, a movement of landscape artists who were active from the early 1910s through the first years of the 1930s. By selecting several of their ...
read moreJacob Garchik: Assembly
by Hrayr Attarian
Trombonist and composer Jacob Garchik is versatile and restlessly inventive. His past work has ranged from a brass-only orchestra to a guitar-heavy ensemble as well as a unique take on gospel music. His sixth release, the provocative Assembly, evokes film soundtracks with a touch of fantasy. The nine originals make a cohesive whole with a creative momentum which does not slack. The opening track “Collage" has two distinct layers; in the background Garchik and soprano saxophonist Sam Newsome ...
read moreJacob Garchik: Assembly
by John Chacona
Trombonist Jacob Garchik has an interest in musical subtraction. His 2012 release The Heavens: The Atheist Gospel Trombone Album (Yestereve Records) presented religious music stripped of religion. Clear Line (Yestereve Records) from 2020 featured a 13-piece big band with no rhythm section. Now comes Assembly, an inquiry into what a jazz quintet sounds like when added to itself. Garchik declares both method and intent in his song titles; the first three cuts are “Collage," “Pastiche" and “Bricolage." The ...
read moreJacob Garchik: Assembly
by Mark Corroto
As a consequence of the global pandemic, we have been schooled in the science of virology. Under certain conditions viruses mutate and reorganize into something completely new. That is bad. Mutations can also be heard in the adventurous music of Jacob Garchik. That is good. His trombone leads his Atheist Gospel Trombone Album, his big band, plus Banda de los Muertos, a Mexican brass band. He can be heard in ensembles lead by Anna Webber, Henry Threadgill, Mary Halvorson, John ...
read moreTom Rainey Obbligato: Untucked In Hannover
by Dan McClenaghan
Tom Rainey Obbligato is drummer Rainey's jazz standards group. Untucked In Hannover is the first live album of a triptych. It follows Obbligato (2014) and Float Upstream (2017), both on Intakt Records. Great American Songbook tunes hammered and bent and stretched away from expectations into new shapes is the name of the game, an approach which runs parallel to that of Lee Konitz, especially the alto saxophonist's late career outings, including Live At the Blue Note (Half Note, 2012) and ...
read moreOhad Talmor: Long Forms
by Glenn Astarita
New York City-based tenor saxophonist, composer, arranger Ohad Talmor and associates provide all the 'jazz' news fit to hear on this superb effort, comprised of thorny time signatures, shifting detours and offbeat mini-grooves, enamored with the leader's whizzing solos and more goodness. Acclaimed due to his arrangements for the late sax great Lee Konitz and affiliations with top-shelf musicians on a global basis, Talmor's multidirectional works often proceed with a semblance of micro-suites, embedded with simmering, odd-metered passages, and fluctuating ...
read moreJacob Sacks, Eivind Opsvik, Paul Motian, Mat Maneri Live at Cornelia Street Cafe, NYC
Source:
Michael Ricci
Friday June 11th and Saturday June 12th Cornelia Street Cafe 29 Cornelia Street 9:00PM & 10:30PM TWO MILES A DAY Jacob Sacks, piano; Eivind Opsvik, bass; Mat Manieri, viola, violin; Paul Motian, drums
Back in 2005 Jacob Sacks and Eivind Opsvik wrote five songs each and invited Paul Motian and Mat Maneri with them to record 'Two Miles A Day'. ...
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Choi/Sacks Duo to Celebrate New CD at NYC's Hunter College Thursday October 23rd
Source:
Improvised Communications
On Thursday, October 23rd, vocalist Yoon Sun Choi and pianist Jacob Sacks will celebrate the release of Imagination: The Music of Joe Raposo (Yeah Yeah Records), their second and most recent recording together, with a free performance at the Ida K. Lang Recital Hall at Manhattan's Hunter College. This innovative release finds the eight year-old jazz duo reinventing both the familiar and the more obscure music of the prolific theater, film and television composer, Joe Raposo (1937-1989). Nearly 30 years ...
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Choi/Sacks Duo to Celebrate New CD at NYC's Hunter College in October
Source:
Improvised Communications
On Thursday, October 23rd, vocalist Yoon Sun Choi and pianist Jacob Sacks will celebrate the release of Imagination: The Music of Joe Raposo (Yeah Yeah Records), their second and most recent recording together, with a free performance (featuring special guests, bassist David Ambrosio and drummer Vinnie Sperrazza) at the Ida K. Lang Recital Hall at Manhattan's Hunter College. This innovative release finds the eight year-old jazz duo reinventing both the familiar and the more obscure music of the prolific theater, ...
read more
Jazz Duo Reinvents the Music of Joe Raposo on Its New CD, "Imagination"
Source:
Improvised Communications
Brooklyn's Yeah Yeah Records is proud to announce the July 1st release of Imagination (YY0005), an innovative tribute to the music of composer Joe Raposo conceived and performed by the longstanding duo of vocalist Yoon Sun Choi and pianist Jacob Sacks.
This recording reinvents compositions written by the beloved, if somewhat unknown by name, composer of such oft-heard classics as “Bein' Green" and “Sing", as well as thousands of other lesser-known pieces.
Critics have called Imagination “one of the best ...
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—Peter Hum, Ottawa Citizen
Choi and Sacks work so well together in their own charming, but somewhat
weird, way that they turn this tribute to composer Joe
Raposo into much more than a celebration of his music...these
songs, many of which suckled the children of the ‘70s, are explored in ways
previously unimagined. Choi has magnificent vocal command of a variety of
styles and within this intimate context she scats, sings the blues and postures
as a faux Broadway diva. She jousts with and complements Sacks as he serves
as both accompanist and timekeeper, changing tempo midstream and
improvising off Choi’s intriguing
phrasing. Choi and Sacks clearly have fun mutating rhythms and playing with
the phrasing but the songs’ serious sides are also expanded upon and
revealed...[they] have dressed these children’s classics in
adult clothes and the fit is near perfect.
—Elliott Simon, All About Jazz
Photos
Music
For Tim Smith
From: DedicationBy Jacob Sacks
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