America's Music

"It's a music of self-expression, of improvisation, of discipline."

Robert Ginsburg is the executive director of the Northwest Arkansas Jazz Society and the jazz curator at the Walton Arts Center. He has devoted his life to sharing jazz music by making it more accessible and approachable to everyone.

"I've always been involved in music, ever since I was a young child. We always had a piano in the house, and I had a good ear, but the element I lacked was the discipline," he says. "I've had a life in music, but it's interesting that it's at this point in my life -- at 64 -- I'm doing it full time. There's something compelling about this art form for me and its history with this country."

So when Jazz Appreciation Month rolls around during April, Ginsburg and the Northwest Arkansas Jazz Society host a major event to celebrate the music and to raise community awareness of the important place it holds in history. The Jazz in Bloom event is held annually at the Botanical Garden of the Ozarks and gives the community a chance to hear some talented jazz musicians while learning about the goals of the Jazz Society. This year, those goals include expanding the education initiative in the schools and partnering with the Walton Arts Center to develop a new Jazz Youth Orchestra.

"The motif that runs through all these layers is it is our goal to make this music more ubiquitous," Ginsburg says. "This music used to be America's popular music, and now it's banished to the never-never land of our society. I think people are attracted to those things they have exposure to and just trying to expose people to it gets this music in people's ears."

Putting that music in guests' ears will be the nine-piece Fayetteville Jazz Collective, which will perform several sets at the event. Ginsburg says one of the sets the group will perform is the same set they have been presenting in the schools.

"I was afraid at first people would think it was too academic, but it's 85 percent great music with narrative that tells the story of jazz and how it developed in the past 100 years," he says. "That program is not only putting the music in the schools, but it's our calling card to putting music in the future -- for recruiting for the Youth Jazz Orchestra."

Ginsburg says that because jazz can be so many different things to different people, it can be difficult for people to feel connected to it if they don't understand it. But ultimately, he says, jazz is what you make it -- which also happens to be the title of the program the Jazz Society is bringing in to the schools. Jazz is so tied to so much of what America is about that, for Ginsburg, to ignore it is a travesty.

"The extremes meet -- it's the same with any music. The most expressive music is the most disciplined, but the artists who really get it are the ones who find the zone and can let it go," he says. "This music embodies so much of the art. There's something spiritual about the music experience. Where words leave off, music begins."

NAN What's Up on 04/22/2016