The cat that the Jazz Society wouldn't mind letting out of the bag is the fact that the popular summer music festival is also the key fundraiser for the society's many educational programs for young people.

"A lot of people don't know it, but the festival is the biggest fundraiser we do," says Rob Roman, director of education and outreach for the society. "And the whole purpose is to raise funds for all the education programs that we do year-round."

A free festival might not sound like the ideal way to raise money, but a combination of corporate sponsorship, concession sales and a few ticketed events, such as the opening gala, has kept festival-goers happy with performances by the best and the brightest in jazz while supplying enough funds to instruct and inspire a whole new generation of young talents. Last year the festival raised more than $100,000.

Festival money funds a number of programs, from jazz camps and performance groups to introductory jazz programs for local schoolchildren.

Every year, the Jazz Society offers in-school workshops for students in grades 3­12 in which groups of musicians visit local schools, where they use a variety of methods to demonstrate fundamental concepts of jazz. Students also receive brochures explaining some jazz terms and a CD recorded by Jazz Society musicians using familiar songs (such as "Mary Had a Little Lamb" for younger students) to illustrate basic elements of jazz music.

"We go into the schools and we teach kids what jazz is," says Roman. "We teach them where it came from and then we actually have some things where we get them doing some call and response, so they can feel what it's like to improvise, even if it's only with different rhythms or simple things at first. So the goal is to acquaint kids with jazz, and what we hope is that a lot of those kids will wind up joining the [school] band."

In addition to encouraging kids to take an interest in music, these school programs provide a strong anti-smoking message. The jazz community is in a somewhat unique position to engage students on this subject, notes Roman, largely because of the premature loss of so many great jazz talents to tobacco-related diseases.

Other programs offered by the San Jose Jazz Society include a festival for Northern California middle school and high school bands, the Smith Dobson Youth Jazz Festival.

In the summer, the Jazz Society offers a day camp for ages 12­18 that covers jazz performance, theory and history. Students receive both group and private lessons with professional musicians.

Even the San Jose Jazz Festival itself offers a venue for learning, with a Youth Stage that features student musicians. Around 75 young musicians perform each day during the weekend portion of the festival.

"What's kind of fun is that we see the kids do the [in-school] programs, and then a lot of the kids wind up joining the band, and then they come to the Youth Festival, and then they wind up coming to the camp and then playing at the Youth Stage," says Roman. "So there's a pretty big link with all the different things."

Two groups featured on the Youth Stage will be the San Jose Jazz Society Youth Orchestra and San Jose Jazz Society Youth Combo, ensembles of, respectively, outstanding high school and middle school music students.

At the festival, these two groups will have the chance to perform with some of the festival's biggest names, with the youth orchestra performing with legendary trombonist Steve Turre and the youth combo taking the stage with master saxophonist James Moody. Also, a Latin ensemble formed at the jazz camp this year will perform with top conga player John Santos.

Vocalist Lilibeth Zapata, 16, will also be one of the performers on the youth stage this year. A student at Downtown College Prep, Lilibeth came to the Jazz Society as an intern this summer. Her interest in singing inspired her to sign up for jazz camp, and she recently completed her first session there.

"I ended up going to jazz camp for two weeks, which was a wonderful experience because I got to meet people that liked the same things I liked, and there was no competition, you just wanted to get things right," says Lilibeth. "I gained a lot more confidence going to jazz camp and performing in front of people. It kind of made a huge change in my life."

For her performance on the Youth Stage, Lilibeth wil sing the song 'Summertime.' She appears as part of a group of other jazz camp vocal students, directed by musician Gail Dobson, who was a jazz camp teacher that Lilibeth says she became particularly close to. "Usually, I've had choir teachers say, 'Okay, you're doing this wrong,' but with Gail it's different, because she'll tell you how to improve. She won't tell you that you're doing it wrong," says Lilibeth.

Later this summer, Lilibeth will audition in San Francisco for a showcase and competition for young entertainers called the Best New Talent. The competition winner will receive scholarship money. Lilibeth, who is planning to apply to CSU Northridge, says she will continue to study music when she goes to college and may pursue it as a career. "I'm thinking that my major might be journalism; if not, then communications. I really want to get a minor or something in music, because then that would show that I'm professional."

Whether or not the many students that San Jose Jazz Society teaches go on to play professionally, the benefits of a music education seem to extend into successful careers regardless. "A lot of studies have found that kids who are involved with music wind up more creative in the workplace, whatever field that they choose to enter," says Roman. "We find that that's especially true with jazz music, just because improvisation is one of the more creative forms of music. We find that with those kids, it expands their horizons in a lot of different areas."

The San Jose Jazz Festival Youth Stage will feature performances noon­4 p.m. on Aug. 7­8 at the Tech Museum, Market Street and Park Avenue, San Jose. Lilibeth Zapata and her fellow vocal students will perform on Aug. 8 at 3 p.m. on the Youth Stage. For more lineup information, see story on the last page of this section, or see www.sanjosejazz.org.