Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, Kareem Kandi got an early start playing the saxophone, picking it up at age 11 while attending Washington Hoyt Elementary. In the seventh grade at Mason Middle School, Kandi began a nine-year stint of private lessons with the great saxophonist Tracy Knoop, who molded him into a well-rounded musician, covering technique, sight-reading, theory, ear training, improvisation and composition. The solid musical foundation Knoop crafted in Kandi prepared him for many musical genres and situations: classical, jazz, funk, rock, hip-hop, bluegrass - and even recording and teaching. "He also opened my eyes to lots of great music and musicians, both through his live performances, and by introducing me to recordings of artists that I had little knowledge of at the time," says Kandi of Knoop.

This transmission of knowledge and example from older to younger players is crucial to jazz. It's what separates the genre from pop music, where 20-somethings rule the day.

Knoop's teachings inspired Kandi to teach others. Today, Kandi divides his time teaching jazz improvisation as an artist in residence at The Tacoma School of the Arts, directing the award winning student jazz ensemble at Pierce College, conducting master classes and workshops at schools around the Puget Sound area and maintaining a full load of private students.

When he isn't in front of a chalkboard you can find him in front of an audience, either with the popular world-beat folk band the Paperboys, or leading his group the Kareem Kandi Band, for which he composes and arranges most of the music. A 2011 grant from the Tacoma Art Commission permitted Kandi to compose and record six new pieces, as well as Rodgers & Hammerstein's "Something Wonderful" on the newly-release CD, See What I'm Saying.

In celebration, and to fulfill his grant promise to perform the new work in a public setting, Kandi and cohorts  - bassist Rob Hutchinson and drummer Julian MacDonough - will stage the new work Thursday, March 22 at the Tacoma School of the Arts Theater.

Read Ron Swarner's Q&A with Kareem Kandi on the Spew blog.

[SOTA Theater, Thursday, March 22, 7 p.m., all ages, no cover, 1118 Commerce St., Tacoma]