Josean Jacobo — born 17 August 1983 in Santo Domingo — is a Dominican jazz pianist, composer and bandleader whose group «Tumbao» has carried Afro-Dominican jazz onto international jazz charts.

From improvised melodies to Berklee

He started piano at eleven, teaching himself to improvise before any formal training. Studies at Berklee College of Music, in Boston, are where he began writing his own material, and he went on to play international festivals including Barranquijazz in Colombia, the Panama Jazz Festival, a jazz festival in Guadeloupe and the Dominican Republic’s own.

«Tumbao»

With his ensemble Tumbao he built a sound that fuses jazz with Dominican folk rhythm, neo-soul and electronic dance music, rooted specifically in Afro-Dominican percussion rather than the Cuban or American models most Latin jazz measures itself against. The group’s albums include «Balsié» (2017) and «Herencia Criolla» (2022).

«Cimarrón», and international attention

«Cimarrón» (2019) became the group’s biggest crossover: it reached the top 100 of the Jazz Week chart and the top 50 on ABC Jazz Australia, made the BBC’s list of most-requested jazz records, and was named one of the year’s best albums by Jazziz magazine.

Legacy

In 2017 Oscar Micheli’s own recognition at the Dominican Republic’s International Jazz Day celebrations named Jacobo among the generation of Dominican musicians — Micheli included — who made it possible to build a career playing jazz alone, something that was not true a generation before either of them.