He marches to beat of his own drum

Drummer Elliot Jacobson is on tour with singer Ingrid Michaelson.

Elliot Jacobson considers himself an accidental drummer who made good as a professional musician.

The Bear Creek native's career might have taken a different turn if he had remembered to bring his dental records when he was a sixth-grade student at John Paul II Catholic School in Houston.

Jacobson desired to join the school's concert band. He intended to learn how to play a brass or woodwind instrument but failed to bring with him his dental records during band sign up.

The records were required to ensure the instrument's reeds would fit properly in his mouth. Moments later Jacobson noticed a friend had signed up to play drums. He made a snap decision to do the same.

"It wasn't really a decision, that's just how it happened," Jacobson said. Drums became a hand-in-glove fit for Jacobson from that day on. After moving with his family to Buffalo, N.Y. when he was around 13, Jacobson cut his teeth playing in bands, practicing in the basement and performing at local venues.

But even after graduating from Wagner College on Staten Island in 2006, Jacobson says he chose to go a safer employment route and went to work for a music publishing company, playing a handful of gigs at night.

"I took it seriously but thought it was too risky to dive in full force until after college," Jacobson said.

The turning point came when the drummer indie pop singer Ingrid Michaelson had intended for her 2005 album, "Slow the Rain" dropped out. The singer then tapped Jacobson as his replacement. The work snowballed from there and he has been her drummer for a little more than eight years.

"It got to a point where I knew this was happening and I was asking for extra time off (from his day job) and I decided I wanted to pursue it and go fulltime as a drummer and take it wherever it took me," Jacobson said.

Jacobson is on six-week tour with Michaelson throughout the United States and Canada. Earlier this month they were at the House of Blues in Houston, promoting Michaelson's new album, "Human Again."

When he's not touring with Michaelson, Jacobson does session work with a number of artists including Lelia Broussard, Katie Costello and Jim Bianco.

Paul R. Kopenkoskey is a freelance writer. He can be reached at neighborhoods@chron.com.