Jacob Garchik

Trombonist Jacob Garchik entered the world on October 12, 1976, in San Francisco, California. Piano sounds filled his childhood home through his mother’s playing, and at age ten he began daily band and jazz instruction within the city’s public schools, guided by Ko Takemoto and Ron Madden while also pursuing classical trombone studies with Doug Thorley. In 1994 he transferred to the Manhattan School of Music, where brief lessons with Steve Turre preceded further classical work under David Finlayson and David Taylor. Since 1997 he has maintained an extensive association with the Lee Konitz New Nonet. For the Kronos Quartet he has supplied arrangements and transcriptions drawn from Thelonious Monk and from musical traditions of China, Korea, Iraq, and Iran. As a freelance performer he has appeared with the Ohad Talmor/Steve Swallow Sextet, Judith Berkson, the John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble, the Ben Gerstein Collective, the Four Bags, Justin Mullens & the Delphian Jazz Orchestra, the Mingus Big Band featuring Elvis Costello, the System Band from Haiti, country musician Billy Gillman, Jackie Cain, and Paul Anka. Additional collaborations have linked him to composers Joe Maneri, Anthony Braxton, Anthony Coleman, and James Tenney, to choreographers Yoshiko Chuma and Anita Cheng, and to the Theatre of a Two-Headed Calf. In the world-fusion sphere his credits include Golem, Frank London’s Klezmer Brass Allstars, Metropolitan Klezmer, Isle of Klezbos, Greg Wall’s Simcha All-Stars, Aaron Alexander’s Midrash Mish Mosh, Judith Berkson’s East River Orchestra, What I Like About Jew, German Goldenshteyn, Michael Alpert, Slavic Soul Party!, Eugene Hütz, and Gogol Bordello. He also performs on bass trombone, tuba, accordion, computer, and piano.