Erik Jacobson
Erik is from South Minneapolis. Tuba playing runs in his family. His grandpa Jack along with two of his uncles, Tom and Mark, all played tuba. Erik decided to follow in their footsteps and in fifth grade began taking tuba lessons. Sometimes Erik used to walk to school pushing his tuba in a baby carriage.
After high school graduation Erik attended the University of Wisconsin, Madison. While at Madison Erik started a brass band, Mama Digdown's Brass Band. With Mama Digdown's, Erik has toured extensively in the U.S and Europe as well as releasing eight recordings.
When Erik moved back to Minneapolis in 2001 he was looking to start a traditional jazz band. A couple years later he found a like-minded Tony Balluff, and together they formed Southside Aces.
Erik continues to travel to New Orleans often (he has been there over 40 times) for inspiration and education. He has had the honor of sharing the stage with some of New Orleans top musicians-Leroy Jones, Bob French, Trombone Shorty, Mark Braud, Shannon Powell, Irvin Mayfield, and Henry Butler as well as the Treme, Hot 8, Stooges, and Dirty Dozen Brass Bands.
Erik Jacobson
"My biological parents abandoned me at Reptile Gardens in South Dakota when I was two. I grew up with lizards and snakes. More than once the workers would find me curled up asleep with the anacondas!" Erik chuckled at the memory. "When it came time for me to decide what instrument I would play in the elementary school band, wrapping a sousaphone around my neck just felt natural, Dog."
Erik Jacobson, sousaphonist, whistler, and hawker for the Southside Aces, went from those humble beginnings to eventually travel the world playing New Orleans music. After graduating from the Minot College of Agriculture and Brass Music, and a brief polka apprenticeship with the Whoopie John Orchestra, he hitchhiked his way south playing for whiskey and tips. He would stay just long enough in each small town to organize a brass band before moving down the road. To this day people throughout the West and Southwest speak of a legendary man they refer to simply as "El Basso".
When he reached the Crescent City, he flourished. He raised copperheads and other snakes he found in the Bayou, selling anti-venoms to the local hospitals. And at night, the music. After learning his New Orleans ropes, however, he found he had a desire to bring the sound back north. In Madison, Wisconsin, he formed Mama Digdown's Brass Band. He also met the woman who would become his wife, world-famous herpetologist Tonya Tennesen.
Today he and Tonya make their home in Minnesota, but he suspects that New Orleanian blood flows through his veins. "Yes, indeed! Every time I go down there at least a little part of me feels like I belong to that place." Between the Southside Aces and his brass bands, Erik "Big Delicious" Jacobson is helping to carry on New Orleans musical traditions that stretch over an entire century.
