At 18, Jakova was nominated artistic director of his school band and his first students were
Çesk Zadeja,
Tish Daija,
Tonin Harapi,
Simon Gjoni,
Tonin Rrota,
Zef Gruda, and many other famous Albanian composers. Jakova started to compose marches and other pieces. On 2 January 1936 he was sent to teach in
Bërdicë where he took care of the musical education of the children. There he learned to play the guitar. During the summer of 1939 he purchased an
accordion and learned that too. At that point he was an advanced, sometimes virtuoso player of the clarinet, the guitar, and the accordion. In 1939 Jakova went to teach in
Orosh,
Mirditë District, where he wrote a piece for accordion entitled "Mall" (), and later the song "Fyelli i Bariut" (), whose text is unknown to us today. This was the first song of Jakova whose text and music had been both composed by him, according to the tradition of the
aheng from Shkodër (). In 1940 Jakova was transferred back to Shkodër where he started a cycle of songs for children and an operetta on two acts entitled "Kopshti i Xhuxhmaxhuxhëve" (). In the academic year 1941–42, Jakova was again transferred in
Katërkollë, a village close to
Ulqin and Osho in the
Krajë region of
Yugoslavia, to where he would commute with his bike from Shkodër, covering every day. In 1942 he went to study
clarinet at the
Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in
Rome,
Italy where he finished with excellent results. In 1944 Jakova was hired by the chorus of the First Partisan Brigade of the House of the Youth where he was named director. During this time he was arrested by the communist regime and held in prison because his brother had been an opponent of the regime, persecuted, and killed by the communists. His former alumni, Çesk Zadeja and Tonin Harapi witnessed that, once released from the prison, Jakova went back to work and started to go to work at 7 in the morning and go back home only by late night. The group gave performances not only in Shkodër but also in various cities of
Yugoslavia, such as
Ulqin,
Cetinje,
Titograd etc. In 1947, Jakova wrote a cycle of songs entitled "Dasma Shkodrane" (), with which he represented his city in a song festival in
Tirana. During 1948–1951, Jakova worked as a music teacher in two schools of Shkodër and never quit for a single day practices of the chorus and the orchestra of the House of Culture of Shkodër. At that time he composed the song "Gruri i ri" () with a text of
Dhimitër Shuteriqi, which was put on stage from
Pjetër Gjoka along with other songs which were brought to the 1950 Festival in Tirana. At the beginning of the 1952 festival in Albania there were high quality soloists and good symphonic orchestras. In June 1952 poet
Llazar Siliqi was put in charge to write a poetry on youth's work on a new hydroelectric power station, which was being built on the
Mat river. The piece started as a song, but afterward it took a longer shape and was divided into two movements called
Dritë mbi Shqipëri (), and was presented in 1952 in Tirana. The piece was nothing but the embryo of the first Albanian opera,
Mrika, which was worked upon by Jakova in the following 6 years and eventually rehearsed on 2 May 1958, and put on stage on 12 November 1958. Rehearsing was done in the House of Culture, the Old Theatre and the new
Migjeni Theatre in Shkodër. On 27 November the general rehearsal was given and on 1 December 1958 the opera premiered in the Migjeni Theatre, and after some performances in the city, on 27 and 28 December it showed in the theater of the
Academy of Music and Arts of Albania, where
Enver Hoxha, then Albania's premier, assisted it. At the end of the show
Kadri Hazbiu, then Minister of Interior, thanked all the artists and raised a toast to Jakova. The event was considered important and Jakova received telegrams of congratulations from many of his peer composers all around the world for the success of his first opera. The extraordinary success of
Mrika led to an encounter between Enver Hoxha and Jakova. Hoxha asked Jakova to write another opera, this time on Albanian national hero,
Skanderbeg, but Jakova answered that "operas are not like loafs which can be put in the oven at any time". It is reported that Hoxha laughed at that response and that he immediately assured Jakova, that he personally would provide to all the necessary conditions to guarantee the opera's success.
Skënderbeu would indeed premiere 10 years after
Mrika and was of a much better artistic quality then
Mrika. Jakova worked very intensively on the music while at the same time he had other responsibilities as the director of the House of Culture and also teaching assignments. He spent several months only on the work of separating the Turkish music from the Arabic one, which was one of the elements of the opera, and many classical composers struggled with, because of the very distant relationship between classical music and oriental one. When Jakova finished the opera, he brought it to Tirana for an approval, but he was asked to review many parts of it. Jakova categorically refused to revise, eventually
Fadil Paçrami, then Minister of Culture, backed him up. Although
Skënderbeu was a great success, and Jakova was congratulated by Enver Hoxha, the vicissitudes of its realization had heavy consequences on Jakova's spirit. This occurred when Jakova's mother was paralyzed at home. The stress accumulated and the despair of a heavy life without recognition, brought him to attempt to kill himself on 9 September 1969, by throwing himself from the second floor of the House of Culture of Shkodër. He eventually died a few days later, on 16 September 1969 in a Tirana hospital, from the fatal wounds. The people of Shkodër, shocked and embittered for the great composer, organized an imposing funeral procession for Albania's greatest musician and composer of that time. The procession was unattended by public authorities, with the exception of the secretary of the
Albanian League of Writers and Artists. The death ceremony was accompanied by the sounds of the musical band of the city of Shkodër, which Jakova himself had created. ==Legacy==