Mr. Jacobs is currently touring with conductor Michael Tilson-Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, playing the world-premiere performances of "Mass Transmission" by SFSO resident-composer Mason Bates, as well as the beguilingly rhythmic "Concerto for Organ With Percussion Orchestra" by Lou Harrison (1917-2003).

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In fact, his passion is music, playing percussion in a pagode (a popular variation of samba) band.

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The free-wheeling Mostly Other People Do the Killing, a quartet that jumps from postbop to funk to free jazz often within the span of a few bars worked the same stage as Rudresh Mahanthappa, whose album "Samdhi" (ACT) incorporates straight-ahead jazz, electronica and Indian percussion and modes.

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Licht incorporates more percussion (tribal-sounding drums), for the faster, most action-based pieces.

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Percussion instruments range from the balafon (marimba) to the calabash, but the celebrity drum is the djembe.

ECONOMIST: Percussion instruments