DRUM ROLL, PLEASE
The Lonesome Organist

As far as anthems go, One of Me is the flag with which Jeremy Jacobsen aka The Lonesome Organist could charge. Proto-limbed, decorated with toy piano, drums, accordion, electric guitar and well-heeled in his tap shoes, he'll foray through...the...well..a crusade? But against what? The inescapable charm invoked by his name? One Man Band, it says below the title of his latest release Forms & Follies (Thrill Jockey). Three reproductions of him in a tux are pictured like a Siamese triplet singing with brio, and a double flip-book of him dancing and playing drums and accordion accompanies the album.

Some music writers imagine what Jacobsen was like as a child; raised on special sugars, didn't share. One article lovingly called him a freak but a genius one at that. Another surmised a kind of frustration fueling a man to play several musical instruments at once. "Actually that's very interesting," Jacobsen responds. "It's about frustration as much as it is about fascination. If I were frustrated I wouldn't be doing anything at all. I've just always been interested in a lot of different things at the same time; a lot of different ways of making music and a lot of different ways of approaching performance. They're all valid and they're all good. That I appreciate so much--It's probably the bane of my existence [laughs] rather than frustration with anybody, or my progress on any instrument in particular. It's just all finding the beauty in all these different ways of making music."

Jeremy Jacobsen is a self-taught musician who started learning Scott Joplin riffs on the piano. He would then place a bucket next to the piano. "Keyboard instruments have this incredible resource. The piano, or any other keyboard instrument, allows you to pay multiple lines at the same time--it's a one man band as it is. There's a giant history of this non-novelty one man band that goes back to 15th century organ players."

Somewhere between the bucket and now, he moved on to the organ followed by the umpteen other instrument he plays with remarkable aplomb. His live shows are described with impending calamitous thrill, as if watching a plate spinner with a dining set in air. There is that element he agrees, but adds: "The thing that would be the most interesting about what I do is the fact that I can do it, rather than I am doing it." There is some mention of his deft musicianship, although its eclipsed by spectacle awe. While Jacobsen calls his live show an "act," he also states it as a resonsibiolity to share what he can do and what he likes. "Not even Bartok wrote a concerto for one player playing percussion and paino at the same time." It might have been done in Bartok times, he says, but it might not have been taken seriously then, either. Not to say Jacobsen is striving for concert hall recognition, though he approchaes music as a classicist. The flipbook even includes his song notation. He reads musical notation as much, if not more than he listens to music. Nor is he willing to get in his car touring the countryside in minstrel-like zeal, though he knowsa man tap dancing while playing steel drum is a rare and somewhat giggly thing at the Fireside Bowl in Chicago. Especially if the previous song sounded more Black Sabbath than Bach. "You have to balance what is going to work with you in your life and what you really want to put out there." I ask how much of that is balanced by humor. "Balanced by humor [laughs]? Probably most."

Forms & Follies is available on Thrill Jockey Records. thrilljockey.com