After Baxter Robertson fulfilled his lifelong dream of becoming a professional musician, he found himself in a profound quandary. He had survived performing on streets and in dingy clubs, built a major label recording artist career, and now managed to support a family in a competitive creative career as a highly regarded commercial composer, writing music for toys, TV, movies, and apps, but something was missing.

“I was sitting there at my computer and it hit me: I had done all this work to be a professional musician, but I wasn’t playing live,” the San Francisco-based artist/composer/multi-instrumentalist says. “I realized, to be who I truly am, I had to be in front of people playing music.”

From this inner directive Robertson created The Tiger Club, a fluid collective of musicians playing his wildly imaginative compositions, an eclectically evocative brand of instrumental pop conjuring exotic locales, intrigue, wry wit, elegant cool, mystique, silken soul, and lush sensuality, among other tastefully stylized but playful moods. The project’s latest, Mephisto Island (Aeneid Recording Company), represents a remarkable feat. It showcases a distinct band identity threaded through a vibrant tapestry of complimentary and contrasting styles.

Robertson holds a degree in music composition from UCLA. He developed his fearlessly theatrical creativity performing in a popular LA street band from 1973 to 1976. From that fertile time, he went on to record as pop-rock artist for such labels as RCA, Atlantic, and ATCO. Currently Robertson is an in-demand commercial composer for television, major motion pictures, apps, and toys. In addition to this work, he teaches graduate level studies in harmony and music theory at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.