Jonathan David Russell is almost nine years old.  He enjoys playing his violin and working on the computer.  His music is one of the most important things to him.  His is in book seven of suzuki violin. He also plays some mandolin, viola, piano, guitar and recorder.

The strange thing for him is Jazz.  Shortly before his fifth birthday he learned a Klezmer (traditional Jewish folk music, now influenced by jazz and sometimes rock) piece.   He started playing his own rhythmic variations on that first piece.  He has 30 or so jazz standards that he knows and improvises harmonically, melodically and rhythmically.  He takes lessons with Andy Stein formerly of The Prairie Home Companion. He now plays at jazz festivals including being flown down to New Orleans for Jazz Fest.  He is typical of Suzuki method students that start young and have involved parents but is really distinguishing himself with the jazz violin.

He now attends a private school in New York and enjoys ice skating and model rockets.   A few years ago he made "a house for my poor people" after watching Robin Hood and a replica of the MET Opera stage complete with a hole for dragging Don Giovanni down into hell.