Musical magic

Jacob Merlin is a lifelong Portland area resident whom you may have already heard around town. The youthful 27-year-old has been playing around the Northwest for the better part of the past 10 years, bringing his singular brand of soulful, piano-driven pop–both on his own and with his band–to audiences of all ages. The Vanguard caught up with this multi-talented performer and got his perspective on playing and making music.

A little background on Merlin: his trombonist father started Jacob on piano lessons when he was only 4 years old. Within a year he began writing his own songs, but he continued piano lessons until age 17. He took all the music classes available in high school and junior high, but when it came time for college, he realized, “I had spread myself too thin. I was senior class president, involved in lots of stuff. I was a little burnt out.”

He was in a band in his late teens called Action Figures. After a term at Portland State, he moved with them to Eugene, pursuing recording and performing with them.

“School was kind of an afterthought to the band,” he said. After a term at the University of Oregon, he quit attending class to focus on music. Some of the Action Figures’ music even got picked up for commercial use from which Merlin says he still receives the “occasional royalty check.”

Since then, Merlin has been playing at clubs and bars around Oregon and Washington, honing his songwriting and refining his skill at the guitar, an instrument he started learning when he was 18.

His sole self-released album, Simple Threads, is in stores now, but doesn’t really reflect where his band is now.

“The new stuff is edgier, funkier,” says Merlin.

The older material reflects the then-current influence of the Dave Matthews Band, but Meriln said “that’s kind of passed now.”

His perennial favorite artists are Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, James Brown, Ben Harper and Radiohead. His ideal band instrumentation, in addition to his own piano and rhythmic acoustic guitar, is the lineup he currently plays with: a horn section comprised of a trumpet, a trombone and a tenor sax, in addition to bass, drums, electric guitar and an occasional auxiliary percussionist.

Merlin’s new material reflects the soulful, timeless qualities of Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles. Audiences can hear it at his upcoming shows, but Merlin’s new album will hopefully be out this October.

“I’m actually in the studio right now, and it’s sounding great,” he says.

His favorite new song of late is called “Changes of Sorrow,” because “it’s Ray Charle-esque, soulful, with some great horn parts,” he says. “My father is the trombone player for my band but also does a lot of the arrangements for the horn section.”

The senior Merlin even took the title song from Simple Threads and added “an amazing new horn arrangement,” which takes the song from being a ballad to being “an Earth, Wind and Fire ballad.”

“It really revitalized the song,” Merlin said. He is obviously excited about his music and it’s an excitement that carries through into life as a music fan.

As a working unit, the Jacob Merlin Band is faced with the necessity of performing covers of other artists’ songs.

“Covers have their place,” he says. Ideally, he said he’d “prefer to use them sparingly,” but he understands that it takes old familiar songs to gain an audience’s interest or trust in your original material.

His favorite song to cover lately is the Ray Charles classic “I Believe to my Soul.” Merlin’s band does the arrangement as performed by jazz vocalist Carmen Bradford, because she took an already great song and added “an amazing arrangement.”

Merlin would like to make music his career, to support himself and his family. Michael Allen Harrison is an influence on Merlin that way. Like Harrison, Merlin is always doing benefit and charity concerts, such as the Doernbecher’s benefit on Saturday, Aug. 4, in Sherwood. Merlin sees shows like this as a way of doing something beneficial for others, using his talents for more than just a paycheck or time in the spotlight.

Upcoming Shows

July 30 at the White EagleCost: Free