Maxwell Friedman was 11 when he sat in with saxophone giant Karl Denson and his band Tiny Universe for the first time.

The band was playing a late-night set at the 2015 High Sierra Music Festival in Northern California, and wasn’t due to hit the stage until after midnight. Friedman, who had played keyboards with jam band ALO earlier in the day, was exhausted.

“We were just gonna go say hi (to Denson), and he was like, ‘Oh, I saw your video! We’re gonna have you up! Come play with us!’” Friedman, now 14, said while hanging out in his jam room at his Bend home. “I was like, OK.”

“I was feeding him Snicker bars and stuff … like those pageant moms, because you know, it was past his bedtime,” his mom Kory Friedman added. “So he went up — (Denson) calls him up, and he played, and right after, he’s like, ‘I’m ready for bed.’ And he went back, and he’s (asleep) within five minutes.”

That was the summer that “everything just really started rolling” for Maxwell’s music career, Kory said. Shortly after High Sierra, Maxwell sat in with Jelly Bread at Munch & Music and Michael Franti at Les Schwab Amphitheater.

“There was like 5,000 people there, and I had in-ear monitors and everything, and there was a huge, big announcement,” Maxwell said of playing with Franti. “I came up and I started playing and then I hopped off, and it was crazy — people were screaming. I was like, what is going on? Everybody was all happy, and as a kid, that was one of the craziest moments for me.”

Since starting on piano at age 8, Maxwell has risen among the ranks of local musicians thanks to his young age and prodigious talent. In addition to getting to jam with everyone from local favorites Elektrapod to members of Snarky Puppy to twice more with Denson, he’s presented a Ted Talk at the annual TedXBend and has played regularly with his piano teacher Georges Bouhey in his many ensembles.

Now an eighth-grader at REALMS, Maxwell still studies under Bouhey, and has taken online organ lessons with jazz player Tony Monaco for the last 2½ years (he jammed with Monaco, too, when the organist’s trio played Jazz at Joe’s last year). But after years of sitting in, Maxwell is ready to step out as a bandleader with The Maxwell Friedman Group, which he describes as “neo-jazz funk soul fusion.” The quartet, featuring Bend music mainstays Gabe Johnson (Elektrapod, promoter with Parallel 44 Presents) on guitar, drummer Connor Streeter (The Cutmen, Moon Room) and bassist Mark Karwan (The Cutmen), will open for Portland R&B/soul ensemble Ural Thomas & The Pain at Volcanic Theatre Pub on Saturday.

The band began rehearsing in December. Although Maxwell is the leader and main composer, everyone contributes to the group’s sound, Maxwell said. His experience playing with Bouhey helped him step into the bandleader role, he said.

“It’s stressful, but I feel like Georges has really prepared me with that, and I give him a lot of credit for bringing me into his Sunday combo things,” he said. “And not only did we play music and learn theory and skill and whatnot, he taught us how to be musicians — not just play the notes, but personality, showing up on time, dressing well, knowing your part, being nice to the sound engineer, like all of that stuff.”

Maxwell’s natural musicianship was evident at an early age, Kory said. The Denson connection helped him get his start in more ways than one — his biological father is former Tiny Universe trumpeter Carlos Washington. (Music seems to run in the Friedman family, as well: Maxwell’s 9-year-old half-brother Levi plays drums.)

“So when Maxwell was 3, I asked Karl — I said, ‘Maxwell is very musical; he definitely seems drawn to music, and what do you recommend we do?’” Kory said. “And he said, ‘Wait until he’s 8 and start him on the piano, because from there, you can go anywhere.’”

After starting with classical piano, Maxwell soon switched to studying jazz with Bouhey. His adoptive father, Jason Friedman, initially introduced him to Herbie Hancock’s 1973 “Head Hunters” album alongside Phish and old-school funk groups such as The Meters, but Bouhey showed him more jazz players such as Oscar Peterson, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and Art Tatum.

Bouhey also helped introduce Maxwell to the organ, his main instrument today (he was recently named a Hammond Artist by Hammond USA, maker of the B-3). At age 10, after exploring the instrument via online research and YouTube videos, Maxwell began experimenting with Bouhey’s M-3 organ and Leslie speaker. Monaco urged Maxwell’s parents to get him a B-3 when he began lessons, and since signing with Hammond, he’s purchased a digital SKX model for live performances, as well.

“I love the B-3, but it’s 400 pounds, and this one’s 31, so obvious advantage there,” Maxwell said.

The Maxwell Friedman Group is gearing up for a number of shows beyond Saturday, including another VTP slot in May opening for The Funky Knuckles and a slot at this year’s 4 Peaks Music Festival in June.

He is also putting finishing touches on a three-song session he recorded in April with engineer and drummer Chris McGrew at Hyde Street Studios in San Francisco (the same studio “Head Hunters” was recorded in).

“That was my first session in a studio, and it’s a pretty dope studio, too,” he said. “And there’s a lot of history in that room. … And I actually hopped in on another session downstairs and did a couple key things.”