Bruce Jacobs

Although born in New England, I moved with my family to Nova Scotia, Canada at a young age. I grew up in the outskirts of Halifax, and was involved in many academic and sport related pursuits until high school, when music became my main focus. I was trained initially in the Halifax Music Department, a city wide after school program that took in students from all over the Halifax area. The brainchild of J. Chalmers Doane, the "music dept" had vast numbers of students travel its hallways, many of whom became close friends and a smaller number of which embraced music as a vocation in adulthood (a smaller number of which have impacted the national music scene in various capacities). I moved to Ottawa in my 22nd year after completing a diploma program in computer programming/ operations, but returned to Halifax to continue performing after an unsuccessful job search in the nation's capital. Met my wife soon after, and married in '84. Moved to Vancouver in '85 and during our 4+ years there I managed to tour with the infamous Powder Blues Band as well as spend time in the Larrivee Guitar shop as an apprentice to the future owner of Morgan Guitars, David Ionnoni. Moved back to Halifax in '89 and started free lancing there. I also began working with the Rankin Family- an affiliation which lasted until late '92. While continuing to free lance I toured with the Barra MacNeils in '94-'95, and my last "full time" touring gig started in '96 with Natalie MacMaster. She initially had a national radio show broadcast out of Halifax, and we accompanied many fabulous players who guested on the show. I left Nat's band in '98 due to scheduling difficulties, and since then have free lanced in both Halifax and Winnipeg (since my arrival here in '04). I led the band for the wonderful Rankin Reunion tour in Jan/Feb of '07, and have been the proud bassist in the Rankin Sister's Christmas Tour band each year from '02 through '07. Along the way through the years I have had the honor and pleasure of working with many fantastic musicians (who also happen to be fabulous people), as well as having accompanied dozens of artists who I respect greatly and admire fiercely. To this point I have performed in hundreds of communities and cities in all but 2 of Canada's territories/provinces, 36 States of the USA, Mexico, Jamaica, England, Scotland, Wales, France, Germany and Holland. I have appeared in many television presentations regionally and nationally, dozens of professional theatre engagements, radio and television ad campaigns, played on more than 100 recordings and played literally thousands of live dates. Although I don't always feel or act so, I know in my heart that I have been blessed to have the opportunity to do what I love most of all, with the love and support of my direct and indirect families and the beautiful souls who have accompanied me on various parts of my journey thus far. In each day and gig I try to live in that moment and appreciate my good fortune.