"The idea was to bring music to town, to be a facilitator for a lot of music kids can't hear on the radio," says JAMinc's chairman and former WRVA radio host Tim Timberlake. "Wally's idea was to start a non-profit organization. He did all the paperwork to get us the 501(c)(3) status."

With a strong focus on jazz and roots music in all its many forms -- folk, Americana, bluegrass, gospel and blues, JAMinc organizes a roster of musicians and makes them available to the community. Although some concerts are held purely for entertainment, most events involve some music education in the form of workshops, seminars and presentations in schools. Timberlake hopes to get schools in Richmond, Henrico and Chesterfield in on the action. "This music is so rich. Even with the mainstream exposure from "O Brother Where Art Thou?" there is a lot of room to make it more available. For those of us who've known about it and enjoyed it for years it's exciting to see young people being drawn towards that music."

JAMinc has already helped coordinate a few concerts in the past year. In January the group hosted a free vocal workshop and performance by bluegrass band Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver. Before that, a presentation by banjo player Bill Evans at the Virginia Historical Society in June. This weekend JAMinc brings up-and-coming jazz quartet Neighborliness to students at the Maggie Walker Governor's School.

The timing couldn't be better. Recently Neighborliness was appointed by the State Department to be "Jazz Ambassadors" to the Far East. The group, led by clarinet and saxophone player John Winn, auditioned for the slot through the Kennedy Center and was selected along with six other bands to bring great vocal jazz to places as distant as South Korea, Cambodia and Russia. Says Winn: "The point of the Cultural Ambassadors program at the State Department is education. We're going over there to say, "Hey, here are some hip things about this type of American music."

The Maggie Walker Governor's School, with its new auditorium, is "a nice place to have an event like this," Timberlake says. "We wanted to give this band a nice send-off after the great honor they have earned." With limited options around town, JAMinc has had to think outside the box when it comes to choosing venues. House concerts have become a popular alternative to clubs. For an upcoming show with blues veteran Ellen McIlwaine JAMinc set up a private performance at In Your Ear, which has already sold out. "It's a really intimate way of enjoying national and regional acts coming through town. People can come and have an up-close and personal experience. It's more intimate."

With their demanding day jobs, the men behind JAMinc are looking for meaningful musical experiences more than high volume. For now that means three or four performances/workshops and three or four house concerts a year.

"When we first started talking about this we all wanted to start a club, a venue like the Birchmere," Timberlake recalls. "Then we began realizing that maybe at our ages this is a little too much to take on. Basically you have to change your life. So we decided we would try to make music happen with other existing venues. Try and match artists with appropriate venues and work with as many different locations as we could. We want to put on concerts that bring people in. We're trying to make live music happen."