| Jazz |
Eric Jacobson’s “New Outlook”: A Trumpeter’s Dialogue Between Past and Present.
When the playing of a trumpeter truly speaks, it awakens an instinct. For me, that means stopping the record at hand and reaching for the early Miles Davis albums, a private ritual that has nothing ceremonial about it, but everything to do with necessity. It’s a way of measuring not imitation, but spirit: does the horn carry that urgency, that unshakable need to make the instrument live and breathe? If it does, then resuming the new album is not just a return, it’s a revelation. And that is precisely what happens when listening to Eric Jacobson.
Jacobson, a Milwaukee-based trumpeter with a steadily growing reputation, has released New Outlook, a work that builds bridges with rare elegance. The album is not only a collection of nine tracks, six classics and three originals, but a dialogue with the very history of jazz. It features a composition of his own, one by pianist Pamela York, another by bassist Clay Schaub, and even a gesture toward the towering figure of Oscar Peterson. From the outset, the project makes its intent clear: to stand at the crossroads of tradition and innovation, to show how the language of the past still speaks fluently in the present.
This balancing act is no small task. Jazz, after all, is a genre where the weight of history can feel almost overwhelming. Every standard has been played, replayed, and reinterpreted by generations of masters. Approaching them again risks redundancy. Unless, like Jacobson, you bring a fresh sensibility, the courage to reshape without betraying, the humility to honor without retreating into mimicry. His playing is lyrical yet unvarnished, melodic yet edged with raw energy. It conjures the image of a winter evening: a fire glowing, a glass of bourbon within reach, and music that sends shivers not through volume but through truth. The album does not present itself as a virtuoso’s showcase. Instead, it feels like a meditation on what it means to listen, to converse, to make music new again.
That sensibility is not accidental. For four years, Jacobson held a weekly residency at Milwaukee’s legendary Mason Street Grill, playing alongside York and Schaub. The three musicians forged a rapport so natural it verges on telepathic. Their decision to record as a drummer-less trio is audacious, an acoustic tightrope act, but it allows every note to ring with clarity. The absence of percussion does not leave a void; it sharpens the interplay, demands precision, and invites intimacy. In this setting, the trio reveals the music’s bones: its structure, its pulse, its hidden conversations.
York’s piano contributes both grace and fire, her arrangements slipping through the record with understated brilliance. Schaub’s bass anchors the trio with both warmth and agility, his composition offering yet another facet of the album’s voice. Together, the group creates a sound that is sophisticated yet accessible, polished yet deeply alive. Listening closely, one hears not only musicianship but companionship, three artists who trust one another enough to take risks, to suspend time, to let silence carry as much weight as sound.
The result is an album that recalls the great recordings not by imitation but by atmosphere. The engineering is so intimate it places the listener squarely at the center of the trio. Close your eyes, and it feels like a private concert, the kind of session that lingers in memory long after the last chord. At times the experience calls to mind those revered Milestone recordings, yes, Miles again, inevitably. But the comparison is earned. Like Davis and his small groups, Jacobson and his trio communicate passion in its most direct form: a determination to make the music matter.
Jacobson himself is more than a regional figure. His career has included collaborations with acclaimed ensembles and appearances alongside a range of jazz luminaries. His reputation rests not just on technical command but on expressivity: a horn that sings as much as it declares, that can whisper and blaze within the same phrase. He is part of a generation of musicians who refuse to see tradition and modernity as opposites. For Jacobson, they are parts of the same fabric, threads to be woven, unraveled, and re-woven again.
In that sense, New Outlook is both a title and a manifesto. It suggests renewal, an insistence that even the most familiar material can be reimagined if approached with honesty and craft. It is also, more quietly, a statement about humility. Jacobson does not play to overwhelm. He plays to connect, to the past, to his collaborators, and to the listener. That connection is what makes the album resonate so deeply.
Listening to New Outlook is a reminder that jazz, at its best, is not about nostalgia or novelty. It is about conversation: across time, across styles, across the invisible space between musician and audience. Eric Jacobson has given us a record that captures that conversation in all its intimacy and fire. And in doing so, he confirms what attentive ears will already suspect, he is very likely one of the finest trumpeters of his generation.
Thierry De Clemensat
Member at Jazz Journalists Association
USA correspondent for Paris-Move and ABS magazine
Editor in chief – Bayou Blue Radio, Bayou Blue News
PARIS-MOVE, September 22nd 2025
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Musicians :
Eric Jacobson – trumpet
Pamela York – piano
Clay Schaub – bass
Track Listing:
1 Onward 4:39
2 On the Sunny Side of the Street 6:18
3 New Outlook 5:38
4 Bittersweet 6:04
5 Hymn to Freedom/A Child Is Born 5:01
6 To Wisdom, The Prize 6:03
7 Lover 3:08
8 Shadow Catcher 6:38
9 Una Mas 4:01
Music by:
(1) Jacobson; (2) McHugh/Fields (arr. York); (3) York;
(4) S. Jones; (5) O. Peterson/T. Jones/R. Hanna/A. Wilder;
(6) L. Willis; (7) Rodgers/Hart (arr. York); (8) Schaub;
(9) K. Dorham
Production Info:
Produced by Eric Jacobson, Pamela York, & Clay Schaub
Recorded, mixed & mastered by Vijay Tellis-Nayak at Transient Sound, Chicago, Illinois
Recorded on November 19, 2024 & May 5, 2025
Liner notes by Brian Lynch
Trio photograph by Ryan Bennet
Cover painting by Laurin Rinder
Cover design & layout by John Bishop
On Tour:
Sat, September 27, 2025 @ 6:00 pm
Mason Street Grill Milwaukee, WI
Fri, October 24, 2025 @ 7:30 pm
The Estate Milwaukee, WI
Fri, October 31, 2025 @ 7:30 pm
Berlin – Minneapolis Minneapolis, MN