Jacob William
Jacob William
bass player, composer, improviser and educator
Born and raised in India, Jacob arrived via rare routes to play on the vast fields of Jazz and other creatively improvised and composed music. Jacob grew-up in a syncretic milieu; he attended parochial school and traveled extensively from a very young age. His earliest years in music were spent singing in choirs and being engaged in informal learning of a wide array of diverse hybrid music and playing various instruments. In his teens, Jacob started playing the bass guitar and soon began playing concerts and festivals all over India in the company of many forward-looking elder musicians who had a particularly deep interest in Jazz. Jacob moved to the U.S. in 1991 after receiving a scholarship to study music.
In 2001, Jacob received a Master of Arts in Music degree from Wesleyan University, where his studies and work combined ethnomusicology, world-music and experimental composition under the guidance of Anthony Braxton, Neely Bruce and Alvin Lucier. In the realm of world music, he also studied South-Indian vocal music with T. Viswanathan and percussion music with Ramanad Raghavan and David Nelson. During 1998-1999, he attended the New England Conservatory of Music and studied in the department of Third Stream Music / Contemporary Improvisation under Ran Blake and studied the bass with Cecil McBee and John Lockwood. From Berklee College of music, he earned a Bachelor of music degree in 1997 after studying Composition and Arranging while concentrating on jazz bass performance, and he studied with Bruce Gertz, Whit Browne and Rich Appleman. During this time, he also participated in Kenny Werner and Bob Brookmeyer master classes in composition and improvisation. He also privately studied jazz improvisation with John Laporta, Hal Crook and Charlie Banacos.
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March 03, 2012
( Joe Hunt - 4/2/04)
...refined tone... fluid... bassist William... J. Nannen (Jazz Review)
'William is at the heart of these pieces, working with Galipaut to push the music forward. He never overwhelms the soloist and frequently provides a running commentary to complement what they’re doing....compositions (Welcome Steps / Palm Dance / Rishi Ways / Upload Method / Repetition