Sullivan performs at a WeBop event in November.

There’s a room full of people and instruments buzzing. A rhythm section taps out a basic tune while kids, their parents, and other musicians alike are dancing, moving, and singing together. These kids are learning to improvise, engage in call and response, feel the music, and all the while have tons of fun with the genre of jazz.

At the center of the room is Tim Sullivan, a jazz saxophonist from Eau Claire, laughing and leading the group through songs and exercises. Sullivan’s the type of jazz expert who could roll with the best of them, and in this environment he’s presenting kids with a real jazz experience. But Sullivan makes it so approachable and open, that it’s less like a jazz lesson and more like a jam session.

“There’s a difference between jazz in school and jazz in the real world,” Sullivan told me. “Jazz is a music that has to live and breathe.”

“There’s a difference between jazz in school and jazz in the real world. Jazz is a music that has to live and breathe.” – Tim Sullivan, jazz musician and educator

After graduating from Eau Claire Memorial High School, which has a lauded jazz program, Sullivan studied jazz saxophone at the Chicago College of Performing Arts. In the Windy City, he started gigging around, playing live jazz as often as possible, sometimes with his friends, sometimes with legends. After graduation, he headed south to New Orleans to get his master’s degree from the University of New Orleans. That’s where jazz, for him, became something else entirely.

“That just opened up everything for me – musically, humanistically,” he said. “There were 2-year-olds clapping on two and four. I was kind of a jazz-head when I moved down there, but it was just like, ‘Whoah, this is so more important than just jazz; this is a social process.’ ”

Soon after, Sullivan became a New Yorker, where he attended Columbia University for a spell and got involved with Jazz at Lincoln Center, a facility in Manhattan that holds jazz performances, promotes advocacy, and has an impressive slate of forward-thinking educational programs. Sullivan headed up an educational program called WeBop, a class that invited families to stomp, strut, and swing to the joyous rhythms of jazz as they learn about the core concepts, instruments, and great jazz performers.

Now, Sullivan finds himself back in Eau Claire, where jazz is in the water. We’ve got the Eau Claire Jazz Festival, award-winning jazz ensembles on the high school and collegiate level, and a new jazz-focused music venue in The Lakely. Add WeBop to that list.

At its heart, jazz is entirely expressive. With WeBop, kids learn to express themselves in a unique way very early on,while bolstering creativity, imagination, teamwork, and listening – rather than just learning notes and reading music.

“Sometimes, the way that we teach jazz in schools is totally antithetical to what it actually is. So I’m very interested in pedagogical curriculum for this setting,” Sullivan said. “You can’t just teach a baby to read. You talk to them.”

Sullivan designed a large portion of the WeBop curriculum himself, and come January, local families can start enrolling and kids can start playing. Meanwhile, when UWEC students or other jazz musicians want to get involved, they can sit in on a class, or even start to learn how to facilitate WeBop themselves. Sullivan’s taking the lead for now, but he hopes other artists will step up and join him so WeBop can be a longstanding part of our city’s evolving jazz community.

“As artists, I think we have an obligation to ask ourselves, ‘How are we helping?’ ” he said. “The idea to me of just leading a career an artist, as a self-promoting, self-employed hustler, I’m kinda over that. I want do something more.”

WeBop classes will meet Saturdays between Jan. 7 and Feb. 25 at UWEC’s Haas Fine Arts Center. The cost is $150 per term. Learn more at eauclairejazz.com/webop/, or by contacting Gweni Smith at (715) 836-4092 or gweni.smith@eauclairejazz.com.