Early Life and Education
John Francis Pastorius III was born December 1, 1951 in Norristown, Pennsylvania to Jack Pastorius (big band singer and drummer) and Stephanie Katherine Haapala Pastorius, the first of their three children, Jaco Pastorius was of Finnish, German, Swedish and Irish ancestry.
Shortly after his birth, his family moved to Oakland Park, Florida, (near Fort Lauderdale). Pastorius went to elementary and middle school at St. Clement's Catholic School in Wilton Manors, and he was an altar boy at the adjoining church. In his years at St. Clement's, the art he was most known for was drawing.
Pastorius formed his first band named The Sonics (unrelated to the Seattle-based band of the same name) along with John Caputo and Dean Noel. He went to high school at Northeast High in Oakland Park, Florida. He was a talented athlete with skills in football, basketball, and baseball, and he picked up music at an early age. He took the name "Anthony" at his confirmation.
He loved baseball and often watched it with his father. Pastorius' nickname was influenced by his love of sports and also by the umpire Jocko Conlan. He changed the spelling from "Jocko" to "Jaco" after the pianist Alex Darqui sent him a note. Darqui, who was French, assumed "Jaco" was the correct spelling. Pastorius liked the new spelling. Jaco Pastorius had a second nickname, given to him by his younger brother Gregory: "Mowgli," after the wild young boy in Rudyard Kipling's children's classic, The Jungle Book. Gregory gave him the nickname in reference to his seemingly endless energy as a child. Pastorius later established his music publishing company as Mowgli Music. In 1973, he was an instructor at the University of Miami's Frost School of Music.
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