"On the most basic level the goal of the Jazz Museum in Harlem is to celebrate great jazz musicians."

We want to celebrate such legends as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman. We want to talk about jazz and who created it," explained Loren Schoenberg, the museum's executive director. "When we first began discussing this project, Harlem was the only site ever considered. Jazz is deeply rooted in the Harlem community and it continues to be an incredible cradle for jazz. A museum like this will only succeed if there is a perception that it comes from the community and receives support from the community leaders."

The museum was the brainchild of Art D'Lugoff, former owner of the famed Greenwich Village jazz club the Village Gate, which closed in 1995. He shared the idea with his friend David Levy, another jazz enthusiast, who is director of the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Together they enlisted Leonard Garment, an attorney/politician and former counselor in the White House to Richard Nixon.

Jazz and Nixon may sound odd, but in his earlier days Garment was a member of the Woody Herman Band.

"My performing career was brief, but my love for jazz proved permanent," he noted.

He is the present of the museum and was instrumental in getting the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone (Harlem's main funding source for businesses) to provide its first funding of $125,000. In December 2000, Garment managed to secure the project a $1 million grant from Congress with the assistance of Reps. Charles Rangel and John Conyers of Michigan; unexpectedly, Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, at the time chairman of the Appropriations Committee; and Senators Daniel P. Moynihan (N.Y.) and John Warner (V.A.).

"Of course you can't build a jazz museum with a million dollars in New York City," Schoenberg admitted. "We will have to raise a lot more money."

Schoenberg and the board members (Wynton Marsalis, Daryl Libow, David Levy, Dr. Billy Taylor, Ken Burns and Leonard Garment) have a great responsibility and task ahead of them - exhibiting the story of jazz.

Jazz is more than mere improvisational rhythms. Jazz was birthed in Africa and began its long sojourn in the hearts of a people who were imprisoned on slave ships destined for a new land. Their rhythmic sounds was a symphony of heartache, fear and a strong will to survive that persisted on the shores of America, where playing instruments, particularly drums, was punishable by death.

Their rhythms raged on in the cotton fields under a blistering sun, as the slaves moved to the beat of work songs and received a whipping if too slow. The songs didn't die. They continued in the sons and daughters. They're in the fiery blues of Lead Belly and Sun House, and the jumping ragtime beats of Fats Waller and Jelly Roll Morton, as Louis Armstrong's trumpet blazed through New Orleans, causing everyone to take notice.

Luckey Roberts, James P. Johnson and Art Tatum played Harlem clubs, and along came the innovative sound of bebop with Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, and Charlie Parker. The big-band sound was ripping like a hurricane as dancers did splits, dips and shook their hips to Court Basie, Chick Webb, Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway and Fletcher Henderson.

There was Billie Holiday, whose beautiful, haunting voice hypnotized mortals as a million ancestors cried out her name. Ella Fitzgerald shared her sophisticated rhythms and acrobatic scats, while Nina Simone stood tall singing "4 Women" and introduced "Peaches" who didn't take no mess - she was Black and tough.

And the ancestors' drum beats raged louder as Max Roach and Roy Haynes kept a constant beat that roared through lynchings and segregation into the Bush era.

This improvisational music called jazz is a unique sound, colored with political and social ramifications, weaved with Black cultural threads. It's the voice of the ancestors who speak through these great master musicians and the younger generation, who play the rhythms of America's only true art form.

Obviously, undertaking a jazz museum for Harlem and the world to view won't be easy, but Schoenberg is enthusiastic and makes new strides every day. As we sat in his large, sparsely furnished offices on East 126th Street, he discussed the museum's main objectives:

"First we need to find a site; we've gone about as far as we can without one. We're discussing how to tell the story of jazz and reflect its international scope, support the local community and raising more money." He added, "At different times, each one becomes a primary focus."

The museum has already received the green light from all the major organizations in Harlem and the jazz community, but without a site they haven't been able to amplify their profile among local residents.

"Although the museum will incorporate an archival component, it won't be the sort of place where the major thrill will be seeing Lester Young's porkpie hat," explained Schoenberg. "We want it to be fun for kids, experts and the general public. We want to be the world's greatest museum."

In addition to his duties as executive director, Schoenberg is currently the musical director for the incomparable crooner Bobby Short and a faculty member of Juilliard's Institute for Jazz Studies and Jazz at Lincoln Center's Jazz 101 series. Over the last 25 years, he has played saxophone with a variety of jazz artists, from Eddie Durham to Benny Goodman to Ella Fitzgerald to Wynton Marsalis.

For the month of October, the Jazz Museum, in conjunction with the City Museum of New York (at 1220 Fifth Ave.), will present a series of Wednesday-night talks and concerts, "The Music of Harlem," hosted by Schoenberg. On October 8 at 6:30 p.m., Bobby Short is in conversation. On October 15 at 7:30 p.m., the Jon Gordon Quartet celebrates Harlem composers Duke Ellington and George Gershwin. On October 22, 6:30 p.m., noted jazz critic/author Stanley Crouch discusses the history of bebop, and on October 29 at 7:30 p.m., the Wycliffe Gordon Quintet plays the music of Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk.

The Jazz Museum in Harlem is dedicated to fostering the music as a living, breathing entity that looks as far into the future as it does into the past. Visit its Web site jazzmuseuminharlem.org.