His initial public performances were in chamber groups, and as part of a pianist duo with Elizabeth Lightoller[1] before making his solo debut at the Wigmore Hall on 9 May 1975 with a programme of little-known 20th century composers.
[2] He has continued to concentrate on out-of-the-way (particularly English and French) repertoire of the late 19th and 20th centuries throughout his subsequent career, playing works by such figures as Henry Balfour Gardiner, Alan Bush, Benjamin Dale, John Foulds, Trevor Hold, Billy Mayerl, Betty Roe, Harold Truscott and Percy Turnbull.
[4] In the early 1990s Jacobs began recording for the then new Hyperion label, beginning with the complete solo piano music of Cécile Chaminade.
[9] Jacobs returned to the studio in 2020 to record additional works by Trevor Hold, and again in 2021 to perform a sequence of British piano music from his repertoire hitherto unrecorded.
[12] He has also served as head of keyboard at Latymer Upper School in Hammersmith, taking courses in the music of Schubert, Chopin and Mendelssohn.