Julian Lage

He’s one of the finest jazz players of his generation but how will he handle the 10 questions we ask everyone?

1 What was your first guitar and when did you get it?

“My first guitar was a Fender Stratocaster that my parents gave me when I was five. My father had started playing the year before and I asked my folks for a guitar. They said if I still wanted one when I was five, they would get one.”

2 What guitar would you save if the building was burning down?

“That’s a tough one. I would be inclined to save a Linda Manzer Blue Note guitar I’ve been playing for years. It’s the guitar I played the most when I was growing up. I started to play it when I was about 11, she sent it to me to try out and said if I liked it we could work something out, pay over time, low pressure. It became the foundation of all my studies as a jazz guitar player and it occupies a big part of my journey. Ironically, my house did burn down in the recent fires in Santa Rosa and we lost everything, so it’s a touchy subject. But in a way I don’t think any of it really matters, having gone through that.”

3 What’s the oldest guitar you currently own?