Jack Stratton

Jack Stratton plays his child-sized Suzuki violin.

Jack Stratton lives in the Eagle Rock neighborhood of Los Angeles, on the side of a hill, hidden from the street. You’ll find a set of stairs — earthquake-shuffled, probably — which cut a steep but short path. While I sat on his patio at a long cork table, Jack cooked greens on an Presto electric griddle and answered my questions.

Find out more about Jack and Vulfpeck — the band he leads — at vulfpeck.com.

What was the last thing you listened to?

Walker

“I’ll Be Satisfied,” by Hezekiah Walker. I was watching a Cory Henry live stream and someone asks about his Gospel influences, and Henry just starts going on a 10-minute crash course of what you need to know. And he said that this live Hezekiah Walker album, Live in New York — he said it’s the Thriller of gospel albums. The definitive live recording. So I’ve been checking that out, and I think “I’ll Be Satisfied” is the most popular song on that album. It is completely jamming. Great bass playing, great chord changes.

What was your first instrument?

Suzuki violin — little, little one. I don’t think I’ve ever been more stoked about a material object. I’d just stare at it. Must’ve been first grade, kindergarten? I was just completely obsessed with how it looked. And then I promptly quit.

You wanted to play it?

Yeah. I wanted to do it. Big time. But I didn’t know what Suzuki was, and I quit shortly into it, because they made you stand the whole lesson. So I could not handle.

Why violin?

Suzuki

I think I really wanted to play an instrument. I think saxophone. And my dad said I couldn’t start that until I was thirteen, for some reason. I think they knew that kids love saxophone because of the way it looks. So I think the only proven thing for kids that young was Suzuki. Can’t go and take private lessons for a first grader, it’s just not going to end well. So I think that’s how it happened.

I don’t think I was telling my parents, “I want to play violin.”

I do know the day it got there, it was in its case in a room, and I wasn’t allowed to see it until the lesson, and I snuck in and just messed around with it.

It was all just about an obsession with the way stuff looked. I didn’t care about the sound.

What happened to it after you quit?

It was a rental. My parents were smart about that. I still love the idea of those tiny violins. It’s a good look. It’s a ~good~ look. I know people who are successful at Suzuki do really well, they have good ears. It’s a really good method. Darren Criss was a Suzuki kid.

You ever think about playing violin again after that?

No.

After interviewing Jack, I wanted to fact-check a few of his claims, so I sent an email to Jack’s father, Bert Stratton, who wrote back immediately with some disenheartening news.

“I don’t remember it all.”

3/1/91

But after consulting his home-video log, Bert unearthed some confirmation and some contradiction. Inspired by the example of his older sister (notably absent from Jack’s narrative), Jack did in fact begin a Suzuki violin course in the fall of 1991. However, earlier that year — 3/1/91, to be precise, when Jack was three-and-a-half — he sat in on drums with the Yiddishe Cup Klezmer Band, his father’s klezmer outfit, at the Beachwood Public Library.¹

And why wasn’t Jack allowed to play saxophone until he was thirteen? Bert — a saxophonist himself — said he couldn’t remember exactly, though was happy to speculate.

“I have a bias against saxophone, because some kids take it up because it’s shiny and sexy-looking. Saxophone should be an acquired taste, something you get into after bar mitzvah age.”