Jacobo
Vega-Albela
Jazz Drummer · Composer · Bandleader
Debut Album "Un-Belonging" 577 Records · May 2025
Based in Rochester, New York, Jacobo Vega-Albela is a jazz drummer and composer dedicated to bringing life to music — whether by composing new works, programming interesting pieces from the standard repertoire, or seeking out collaborators to create fresh and interesting musical chemistry.
In 2025, he released his debut album "Un-Belonging" with 577 Records. The album received press in Donos Kulturalny, Bob Osborne's Different Noises, the Las Cruces Bulletin, Rochester City Magazine, and Jazz Rochester, and has been aired on 91.7 FM WMSE, 91.1 FM WFMU, 89.1 FM KURU, 92.5 FM KOWS-LP, and 93.1 FM CKCU. A subsequent release tour expanded his audience to venues in New York City, Connecticut, and New Jersey.
A multi-disciplinary background has earned Jacobo degrees in Classical Percussion (B.M., New Mexico State University) and Jazz Studies and Contemporary Media (M.M., Eastman School of Music). He was a 2023 participant in Betty Carter's Jazz Ahead, performing his original composition "Birthday Week" at the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage and alongside Melissa Aldana at the Burlington Discover Jazz Festival.
He has performed at the Rochester International Jazz Festival, the Burlington Vermont Discover Jazz Festival, the Geneva Jazz Festival, and the Las Cruces Juneteenth Jazz Festival. He performs regularly throughout Upstate New York at Pausa Art House, The Trestle, and The Little Theatre Cafe.
Half of the tracks on the album are trio selections. A suite made up of "Moonbeams" and "To Hope" prominently features pianist Leon Hsu and bassist Zach Walgren, and "Moonbeams" includes a short drum solo for Vega-Albela. 390S showcases Vega-Albela's writing for trio and a dark re-imagining of "I Fall In Love Too Easily" provides opportunity for the three to stretch out on an old familiar form.
The playful but cerebral "Plonqs" introduces the listener to Jordan Lerner's alto saxophone sound, and an inspired tenor saxophone solo from Adam Aronesty leads the group into a solo from Vega-Albela over a vamp to end the piece. Tender and introspective, "Carousel" (the only quartet number on the record) gives Lerner the opportunity to shine as soloist, this time on tenor saxophone. "High Priest", a dark and evocative track is all about group interplay. Aronesty and Lerner trade ideas on two tenors to kick off a solo where Aronesty and the rhythm section push each-other to new heights. Finally Lerner and Hsu trade ideas to keep the momentum of the piece building. "Birthday Week" is a dynamic closer with a contrapuntal introduction that brings the group together piece by piece. It features Aronesty, Hsu and Lerner (this time on alto saxophone) as soloists, and the band cranks the intensity up all the way to the end of the record.
When Jacobo Vega-Albela left New Mexico for upstate New York to pursue a lifelong dream of becoming a performer and composer, he knew it would change him forever. Ready to expand his potential, he soon found himself on a path that some only fantasize about. He has since transformed his extraordinary journey and its captivating highs and lows into his first album with 577 Records.
"Un-Belonging is a record underpinned by tremendous joy, optimism, and love for the world counterbalanced by a persistent, nagging feeling that I don't exactly fit in where I am," explains the rising composer. "A feeling that serves as a perpetual invitation to lean in, to try to accept change gracefully, and to move through my life as though I am the protagonist of my own story."
Recorded four years after he left the Southwest, the album offers nine tracks that will tug at your heartstrings. "To Hope" elegantly translates the raw excitement and spirited delight Jacobo brings to his beloved genre while the proceeding track, "Plonqs", seems to illuminate the beauty of exploration and change. Jacobo integrated trio, quartet, and quintet settings to capture the diverse feelings and colors he has experienced along this passion-driven adventure. He also used musical contributions from his closest friends and collaborators to define the sound of the album.
My work as a composer is to give shape to deeply felt internal states, and at times to bring to light the otherwise opaque terrain of my unconscious. I believe I am a product of all the small moments I've lived, so I try to live fully and feel with depth and complexity, in the hope that I might write earnestly and imbue the work with some part of my humanity. I find myself drawn to the natural world, the dynamics of human connection, and our relationships to time, impermanence, and perception. These curiosities work their way into my material and serve as an evergreen source of inspiration.
As a writer for improvising bands, I aim to create compelling vehicles for improvisation — musical environments that put the groups I work with into a headspace conducive to open co-creation. The brilliance of improvised music often lives in the collective intelligence of the band, and I welcome the group reimagining and reinventing the material I precompose.
As an improviser, I strive to drop my masks and inhabit the moment, making music in real time without judgment. I am drawn to opposites and contrasts: density and sparseness, motion and stasis, counterpoint and the single line. I play with these polarities to shape the music, and I work with motives to develop a narrative through-line. The tremendous spirit my peers bring to their tireless improvising inspires me to dig ever deeper, to meet them fully in the moment, and to support and challenge them as they do the same.
