On Thursday morning, the Hobby Center's Zilkha Hall was filled to the brim with energy and cacophonous, off-beat clapping as a couple of hundred elementary school students bobbed to the sounds of JazzReach — a New York City-based non-profit organization committed to jazz education, in Houston for a three-day stopover.

Famed for its multi-media performances targeted at young audiences, JazzReach put six jazz musicians onstage along with a singer/narrator to perform live in front of interactive videography that included "guest appearances" by other jazz artists from around the world. As part of the organization's emphasis on jazz music as an American art form with global influence, guest artists included Puerto Rico's Miguel Zenon, India's Rudresh Mahanthappa, Cuba's Yosvanny Terry, Israel's Omer Avital and Benin's Lionel Loueke.

Each guest artist seemed to speak directly to the narrator and to the young audience as the on-stage band played selections of their work and the kids sang along.

CultureMap caught up with founder, artistic director and drummer Hans Schuman for a chat about the importance of music education after the Thursday morning performance. A drummer since 13, Schuman had his first entree into jazz music as a junior in high school during an exchange program at the acclaimed Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan. He followed his interest to Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he studied alongside longtime friend and JazzReach alto saxophone player Mark Gross, and says it was at Berklee that his love of jazz really took hold.

Schuman moved to New York City upon graduation where, during the early 1990s, he says the prominence of gangster rap was very much in the air — especially in Brooklyn.

"I thought, this music is not reflective of all that's possible," Schuman says, remembering the early success of Biggie Smalls and Tupac. "These kids are growing up totally unaware of their own heritage."

Schuman says this realization was the impetus for starting the JazzReach organization, which he founded in 1994.

"Other art education programs are done kind of haphazardly," Schuman says. "The musicians talk, and then they play. They talk, and they play. It's lecture-like."

By contrast, Schuman wanted to find a way to "engage and inform kids in a substantive and informative way" — without having to do all the talking. "That's when the idea of having a narrator came in," he says.

The use of a narrator and videography have been program constants since JazzReach's first live presentation in 1997, although Schuman says "my vision and ambition for video far exceeds my resources."

Most of his collaborators are friends from the New York City jazz community, and some, like Gross, have played with him since the beginning.

"They need to be great musicians," Schuman says of his recruits, "but also embrace the mission. These programs are for young audiences — it's not about us. We're at their service, really."

And it's an important service they provide.

"It's a major component of our collective cultural heritage," Schuman says. "The same way kids are inspired by LeBron James or professional athletes, they can be inspired by jazz. It's a model of the highest form of human achievement."

Schuman equates it to cultivating good nutrition — effective music education being simply apart of being a well-balanced human being.

JazzReach will perform two additional free kids' programs Friday at 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. at the Hobby Center. JazzReach musicians will also take part in a performance led by Delfeayo Marsalis of Divas World Productions at 7:30 p.m. Friday in the Hobby Center. Tickets to the evening performance are $25 each.