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Erik Jekabson

(He/Him)

Erik Jekabson headshot

Contact

Courses Taught

MMT 214

Education

MM San Francisco Conservatory of Music

BM Oberlin Conservatory

Ensembles

Electric Squeezebox Orchestra

Erik Jekabson Quintet

Erik Jekabson String-tet

Q&A

What is your hometown?

Berkeley, CA

What is your favorite recording?

Crescent, John Coltrane

What are you passionate about outside of music?

Hanging with my family; reading jazz biographies

Who were your major teachers?

Elinor Armer, Mario Guarneri

What was the defining moment when you decided to pursue music as a career?

Hearing Freddie Hubbard in 1987

What recordings can we hear you on?

Erik Jekabson "Breakthrough", Quintet and Sextet, Daggerboard and Erik Jekabson Orchestra, (all on Wide Hive Music) Anti-Mass, Crescent Boulevard, Jekab's Music

Media

Erik Jekabson - Breakthrough (YouTube Music)

Biography

Erik Jekabson is a freelance composer, arranger, trumpet player and educator who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is equally busy composing, arranging and playing for different bands, leading his own groups, teaching a wide variety of students and running the Young Musicians Program at the Jazzschool in Berkeley.

As an arranger and composer, he’s arranged for symphony orchestras, (the San Francisco Symphony, the BBC Radio Orchestra, the Utah Symphony, the Coltrane: Legacy for Orchestra Project) vocalists, (Madeleine Peyroux, Ani DiFranco, Jane Krakowski, Jackie Ryan, Kenny Washington, Madeline Eastman) jazz ensembles, (The Daggerboard- Erik Jekabson Orchestra, the Erik Jekabson String-tet, and his own Electric Squeezebox Orchestra, which holds a monthly residency at the Jazzschool in Berkeley) and co-composed the score for the documentary film "Exiled." 

As a trumpet player, he’s spent time on the road with John Mayer, Galactic and Illinois Jacquet, and has performed and recorded with other notable musicians such as Taj Mahal, Maceo Parker, Boz Skaggs and Kermit Ruffins. He has released eight albums under his own name (including four on his own record label, Jekab’s Music), and produced four records with the Electric Squeezebox Orchestra.