In the 1990s, Iowa City had more than a few talented jazz musicians to fuel a growing public interest in the music kindled by its new annual Summer jazz festival. As a result Jacob had a wide array of people to play with and listen to music with, and an especially rich corn state trumpet tradition that had left its mark, from Bix Beiderbecke to Art Farmer, Ed Sarath, Paul Smoker and Ryan Kisor. Being in a small town had its advantages as word quickly spread about the precocious new trumpeter. Exciting professional opportunities, like playing in the band of local guitar guru Steve Grismore, came his way. Playing gigs with older, more experienced musicians and spurred by a performance by trumpeter Tom Harrell at The Jazz Showcase in Chicago, Jacob was inspired to concentrate more fully on making music and honing his trumpet sound. Grismore, who was also the head of the jazz department at the University, thought Jacob would benefit from extensive study with the aforementioned Paul Smoker, an Iowa alum who'd made a name for himself in New York playing an adventurous style of trumpet that utilized early jazz effects like shakes, growls, and glisses mixed with devices like tone rows, pedal tones and extremely wide intervallic leaps, more commonly found in twentieth century concert music. After a week at Smoker's home outside of Rochester, New York, Jacob headed back to Iowa with an even stronger passion and determination to follow his own path. A fellow student urged Jacob to enter the International Trumpet Guild's jazz competition, which he did, taking first place.

NEW YORK

A few months later, Jacob decided to come to New York to finish his degree in The New School For Social Research's jazz program. At The New School he had the good fortune to study under many distinguished jazz musicians; especially influential and involved in his progress were Billy Harper, Arnie Lawrence, Phil Markowitz, Jimmy Owens, and George Garzone. In his final semester Jacob wrote an extended piece commissioned by The Jazz Composers' Collective for jazz quintet and string quartet that would feature Ted Nash on saxophone and Frank Kimbrough on piano.

Since graduating in 1998 Jacob has written music for theater troupes like the Yankee Repertory Theater; performed with symphony orchestras at venues such as Carnegie Hall; and participated as sideman in recording projects from pop, bop, free jazz, big band, to modern classical. His music reflects an urge to reconcile these influences and to construct a balance between the vertiginous frenzied feeling of life as most of us know it on the one hand, with the quiet, sublime often unseen aspects at our cores on the other.