EnerJazz

After battling asthma as a child Pauls mother encouraged him to join the band in elementary school and build his lungs.  A visit to a music store at the age of 10 led to selection of the alto saxophone - primarily because he was able to make a really loud honking sound.

After only two uneventful years Pauls musical career almost came to an end in 1973.  He gave up the saxophone for a year in 7th grade.

He changed schools in 8th grade and had not intended on joining the band.  On the first day of class he was called into the hall by the principle who was waiting with the band director.  The principle, acting on a tip from Pauls mom, encouraged him to join the band.  The pressure was too intense and he succumbed, only to continue his mediocre hobby as a sax player.  

In 10th grade, a new band director came to the school.  At lunch one day he pulled Paul into his office and played a cut from Maynard Fegusons "Live at Jimmys" album.   For you hip young artists, albums are vinyl discs that played music via static electricty and needles.   You can probably look it up in the Smithsonian.

Paul, upon hearing a Mike Migliori alto solo, was intrigued.  The band director wanted to form a jazz band, or stage band as they were called in those days.   This desire lingered despite the fact that stage bands at that time wore brightly colored liesure suits and polyester shirts.  

The band director used to play changes at lunch at ask Paul to solo over them.  It was good ear training and led to a few outstanding soloist awards from several jazz festivals around south Louisiana.

Upon high school graduation in 1978 Paul had to choose a path in life - engineering or music.   His mother, using clever parental logic encouraged him to try engineering and switch to music if he didnt like engineering.   To satisfy his music cravings he played in the marching and basketball bands at college.  Four years later he was sent out into the world with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering.

After landing a job in Dallas he joined a couple of community bands to keep his chops up and possibly meet girls.  At least he kept his chops up.

Then one day in 1986 someone ran a small ad in the company newspaper that said "jazz musicians wanted."   Within two weeks enough people had responded to form a full big band.  A local community college director, Eric Funk, agreed to direct the band.   The Texas Instruments Jazz Band was born.

That group rekindled Pauls love of music and compositions began to follow.  The EnerJazz name is a combination of Pauls two interests - energy efficiency (the engineering side) and jazz (the artistic side).