About

The Baker’s Dozen big band is made up of 13 of the best jazz musicians in the Austin, Texas area, and it came into being totally without any direct planning or forethought. It was just “there” all of the sudden. I opened my mouth one time too many, and a few seconds later, I had started a big band.

The nucleus of the book came from Dr. Paul White, who is now proudly serving his country playing baritone saxophone in the Army Jazz Ambassadors big band. Before Dr. White won that position, however, he led a nine piece group in Austin, Texas called the Acoustic Mayhem, and I had the privilege of playing baritone sax in that group for several years and contributed several charts to the book. When Paul announced he was leaving for the Army position, my good friend and now co-founder and lead trombonist, Ken George said rather forcefully, in my direction “You know, SOMEBODY should take over that book. It would be a shame for all that music just to sit around not being played. SOMEBODY really needs to keep it going.”

My fateful response was, “Well, first you’d have to………, and then you’d have to…………., and then you’d really need to……….”, and around that time it struck me that I had just described the band I was about to take on. I stopped cold. “I just started a band, didn’t I?” Ken just smiled and said, “Yep, I think you did.” The rest is history. After several weeks of modifying existing charts and adding more new ones,

Baker’s Dozen played its first gig at the Elephant Room in Austin, Texas on August 13th, 2008, and we’ve been playing there the second Wednesday of each month ever since.


This band has been a learning process for me in many ways. Thank you for your interest in learning about the band. We hope you’ll enjoy the music you discover and that you’ll share this information with your friends. For us, it’s all about making music and getting it out into the world where it can do its work in contributing to the lives of those who hear it as well as those of us who perform it