Bio

Evan Jacobson is a musician with a wide range of interests hailing from Oak Park, IL. He began his musical studies at a young age on drumset and piano, and began playing the trombone in grade school. He graduated from Lawrence University with degrees in Trombone Performance and General/Instrumental Music Education.

While at Lawrence, Evan explored many branches of his musical interests. In the jazz department, he worked under the tutelage of renowned jazz educator and composer Fred Sturm, playing in the Downbeat Award-winning Lawrence University Jazz Ensemble and studying jazz composition and arranging with Sturm, as well as arranging for and playing in many jazz combos and small groups.

Evan co-founded a reggae/jazz/funk band with several other Lawrence musicians called Fatbook. This group continues to grow more popular throughout the Chicago area and across the country, and was awarded the 2009 and 2010 Downbeat Awards for best college rock/pop/blues band. In the summer of 2014, Fatbook went on a 3-week record release West Coast tour. The band worked at Chicago's notorious IV Labs with producer Greg Magers (Lupe Fiasco) to release their self-titled album "Fatbook." Fatbook has performed with internationally acclaimed artists such as: The Wailers, Youngblood Brass Band, Willie Waldman (Snoop Dog), Nneka, Kevin Kinsella (John Brown's Body), and many more.

Evan’s percussion background and his deep interest in music from around the world has led him to Ghana where he studied drumming and dancing at the Dagbe Cultural Institute, and Trinidad where he studied the steel pan. Currently, he is teaching music at Hatch Elementary School in Oak Park and also at the Old Town School of Folk Music. In Oak Park, Evan founded the Hatch Steel Band, which is quickly becoming one of the largest and most active public school steel band programs in the Chicagoland area. Evan has taken these Oak Park 4th-8th grade students to perform at events such as: Chicago Bulls basketball game, a Chicago Wolves hockey game, and many other significant local venues. This past spring, the Hatch Steel Band worked at Joyride Recording Studio to release their first album.

As a perfomer, you can find Evan performing with several different groups around the Chicago area: Jonas Friddle and the Majority (grand prize winner of the John Lennon international song writing competition), Four Star Brass Band (New Orleans Brass funk), and many others.