I can count on one hand the number of lessons that had with Arnold Jacobs, and yet he had an incredibly profound affect an my life. When I finally called to consult with him, had struggled for almost 10 years a severe playing dysfunction. I had only recently learned I had a fairly rare muscle disease and accompanying neurological disorder, diagnosed by the elite at Southwestern Medical Center (Dallas), Columbia University and the Mayo Clinic. I had traveled to various performing arts medical clinics in Houston, Cleveland and Chicago, and it was here that Alice Brandfonbrenner asked why I had not yet seen Jacobs. I explained that I was embarrassed by my dysfunction and could not imagine him having a grasp of a disease that had only recently been discovered and was not very well understood by the medical community.

By this point I had figured out how to play "around" the problem, but there were some issues that I was unable to rercome. Jacobs not only put me at total ease on the phone, but quickly went to task. He asked me the name of the muscle disease and I related that most neurologists had never heard of it, but finally gave him the Latin name, "myoadenalate deaminase deficiency," to which he instantly asked, "Is the enzyme missing from all of the muscles or just the skeletal muscles?" I nearly dropped the phone. As he continued to ask more questions (ones that no neurologist had thought to ask), I could hardly hold back the tears. He seemed to know more about what I was going through than anyone else. My subsequent visits to his studio on Michigan Avenue were no less amazing.

His gift to me (and many others) was the profound expression of humanity through the art of music. As a founding ember of PRISMA and as a teacher, I have felt strength and guidance from his knowledge of truths pertaining to human expression, performance and learning.

My husband, Verne, called me at my studio at the University of North Texas to tell me that Jake had died. I had just spent two hours with a doctoral student playing tunes by ear to help him get back to playing freely and simply. I cried as if I had lost my father. Much of who I am and how I teach has been shaped by Jacobs and his philosophy. I can think of no other brass teacher who has had such a profound effect on so many.