GET TO KNOW THE NORTHWEST ARKANSAS JAZZ SOCIETY

Robert's life in music for over four decades has forged a permanent presence for jazz within the Northwest Arkansas cultural landscape.

In 1979 Robert began producing a jazz radio show on KUAF-FM. Today "Shades of Jazz," Robert's Friday 10 p.m. to midnight broadcast, stands as the station's longest-running program. 

In 1992 Robert founded the Northwest Arkansas Jazz Society, a non-profit, community-based membership organization producing a fall-to-spring series featuring major jazz musicians. A year later, Robert joined the steering committee assigned to bring focus and direction to Fayetteville's then-emerging Walton Arts Center. When the multi-venue performing arts center opened its doors that year he was named its "jazz curator" – another position he still holds.

Most recently, with the support of the Walton Family Foundation and Walton Arts Center, Robert has launched the "Jazz Education Initiative". The Initiative cultivates jazz appreciation to sustain the jazz art form through education programs integrating school performance, workshops, artists-in-residency, and public performance opportunities. The flagship of the program is the Jazz All-Stars Youth Ensemble. 

In 2010, he received the Arkansas Governor's Arts Award for Community Development, and in 2016, he was the recipient of the Jazz Journalist Association Hero Award. In 2024, Robert was inducted into the Arkansas Jazz Hall of Fame.

Graham returned to Northwest Arkansas in 2020, retiring after a thirty-five year career in higher education.

He had served primarily as a chief alumni officer overseeing public and private university alumni associations, including at Vanderbilt University, the University of Arkansas, and Ohio University.

An active jazz vocalist and trombonist, he has appeared with the Nashville Jazz Workshop, Fayetteville Jazz Collective, Jazz Spoken Here, and Swing Central. Early in his career, he toured and recorded with Grammy-award winning vocal ensemble The Gregg Smith Singers. Graham has performed more than 25 leading roles in musical theater and opera, and was an award-winning whistler featured in the 2005 documentary film "Pucker Up: the Fine Art of Whistling."

Graham grew up near New York City, and went to college and lived for 30 years in Ithaca, NY. He and his wife, Tina, live in Fayetteville. They have two children and two grandkids spread between Springdale, AR and Nashville.

Kay Ellen retired as a CPA specializing in utility accounting with Ozarks Electric in 2020.

Prior to Ozarks she practiced with a regional firm, preparing individual and corporate income tax returns, sales and use tax returns and performing audits of non-profits and for profit businesses. She maintained memberships with AICPA, Arkansas Society of CPAs, NW Chapter ASCPA, and the National Society of Accountants for Cooperatives. Kay Ellen was a member of the NWA Jazz Society for many years before joining as the Financial Manager in 2013. Kay Ellen and her husband Tom have three children and six grandchildren.

Anna is an agency veteran with over a 15 years of design and brand experience. She started her studio, Jacobs&Co, in 2019. In addition to her practice, Anna adjunct teaches at the University of Arkansas’ School of Art.

Jerry Moye enjoyed a 40-year career in the poultry business. An opportunity with Tyson Foods brought he and his family to NW Arkansas in 1993. He retired in 2016, having spent the previous 10 years as Tyson Group VP and President of Cobb-Vantress, Inc. in Siloam Springs. He remains active in the industry through board positions with USPOULTRY Foundation, and Hendrix Genetics, a multi-species genetic company based in Boxmeer, Netherlands.

Jerry has been involved in several community organizations including, Siloam Springs Chamber of Commerce, NW AR JDRF Board, Keep Dollars in Benton County, and currently sits on the board for Circle of Life Hospice.

Jerry is originally from northern New Jersey, just across the Hudson from NYC. His wife, Cherie, is also from the east coast just outside of Washington DC. They have two children, and four beautiful granddaughters spread between Rogers, AR and KCMO.

Rick is instructor in the Music Department at the University of Arkansas and is director of the university Jazz Orchestra and Combos. He received his doctoral degree in Higher Education and MM degree in composition from the University of Arkansas. He has two kids: Alexandra, 17, a Senior at Farmington HS and Derek, 20, a Junior at the University of Arkansas. He enjoys cooking, music, playing games, golfing, woodworking and biking. He is a prolific jazz composer and arranger of jazz for ensembles at various levels, and is an active performer of classical, jazz and pop with numerous ensembles throughout the region.

Margaret Clark is a retired UA Professor and public-school teacher (Pine Bluff). She received a B.A. from Arkansas A.M.& N. (UAPB), plus M.A. & Ed.D. degrees from the University of Arkansas. She received a Fulbright-Hays Scholarship to study at the University of Paris and the University of Besancon.

Margaret was the first African American president of the Arkansas Foreign Language Teachers Association, the AR Division and Fayetteville Branch of the American Association of University Women, Fayetteville Business and Professional Women, the Iota chapter of Delta Kappa Gamma, the International Society for Key Women Educators, and the Arkansas-East Bolivia Chapter of Partners of the Americas. She spearheaded the chartering of the Phi Alpha Omega Chapter of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. and served as its founding president.

Margaret's numerous rewards include a MLK Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2019, a UA dormitory was named Margaret Clark Hall. The Washington County Historical Society named her "Citizen of the Year" in 2020, and in 2022 she was inducted into the AR Women's Hall of Fame.

Margaret's love for jazz began as a teenager in NYC where she was able to see many of the greats play live. She now lives in Fayetteville with her beloved dog, Mia.

Jennifer Cook is an award-winning journalist and communications professional who first gained an affection for jazz while serving on the Blues, Jazz and Folk Music Committee as a student at the University of Missouri-Columbia and attending live jazz at Murry’s. She earned a bachelor of journalism from Mizzou and spent the next three decades working in the newspaper industry, first in Idaho and Oregon, then returning to her hometown of Fayetteville, Arkansas. After stints at the Northwest Arkansas Times and Morning News, Cook worked in multiple editor roles at the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette and Arkansas Democrat-Gazette through the end of her newspaper career. She worked in communications for 10 years, serving as senior media relations specialist at Mercy and as director of communications for the College of Engineering at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Volunteer gigs have included work with the Fayetteville Animal Shelter and EOA of Washington County, which operates Head Start and Early Head Start.

Cook and her husband, Kyle, have enjoyed shows presented by the Northwest Arkansas Jazz Society since their first dates in the late 1990s and became members around 2005. The Cooks’ weekend pursuits include golf and watching thoroughbred horse racing. They live in Fayetteville with their two Great Pyrenees mutts, Maggie Moon and Booker Noe.

Writer and past Sr. Director of the Walmart Heritage Group

Alan Dranow fell in love with Northwest Arkansas in 2006, following 3 years with Walmart.com in the San Francisco Bay area. Originally from Oyster Bay, New York, Alan spent 16 years in marketing creative in Silicon Valley and previously 10 years as a live showcase producer and manager in the music industry in New York. A continuously published writer since the age of 13, Alan has written best-selling interactive children’s books and has been a feature writer and editor for a wide variety of publications, including Rolling Stone, Pro Sound News, The Music Paper of NY and others.

At Walmart, Alan played a key role in the development, and rollout of the Walmart brand. He also led the renovation and expansion of The Walmart Museum as its Senior Director from 2009 until his “graduation” in 2025. During his time at the museum, Alan led the production of numerous jazz performances in downtown Bentonville. He is a member of the board of directors of a number of NW Arkansas non-profits. His two children, both Eli and Lana, attend Belmont University in Nashville, where Eli – as an alumnus of the NWA Jazz Society’s Youth Jazz All-Stars - has continued to carve out a solid reputation for jazz piano performance and arrangement while studying audio production and engineering; Lana is a 3L at Belmont’s School of Law.

Andy resides in Bentonville and has earned a PhD in "life on the road" – spending 50+ years in entertainment, musical, theatrical, tourism and hospitality production, and artist and event management.

He has numerous gold records and spent 12+ years as the tour manager for REO Speedwagon, the Amazing Rhythm Aces, Muscle Shoals Records and All Stars, and Levon Helm; and over 20+ years as an executive director in performing facility management in Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, and Tennessee in the USA, and Sydney, Australia. He has produced literally thousands of events and multiple television specials including Farm Aid I, Hard Rock Rockfests '99 and 2000, and the Montreux Jazz Festival Tour as well as serving as a consultant to the Sydney 2000 and Salt Lake 2002 Winter Olympics. He is currently the CEO of Ozark Production Services, LLC and Mesa Verde, LLC and an active 35+ year member of IAVM. He is an avid supporter of the performing arts, and his many hobbies include hunting and fly fishing, dogs, horses, cycling, motorcycling, golf, food, wine, live music/theater/arts, and literature. He has one child, and two grandchildren.

Imagine growing up with parents who loved you enough to make America’s classic music a part of each of your days. Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, were almost as familiar to me as Ella’s own “A Tiskit, a Taskit” was to my childhood games. By my teen years as I grew up on the Chicago Southside, the sounds of Jerry Butler, Curtis Mayfield, Sam Cook and Jackie Wilson competed fiercely for my attention. Yet, I embraced the opportunity to meet – in the homes of good friends –Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock. I make no exaggerated claims about my proximity to jazz legends, but speak of these artists with full appreciation of their talent and their contributions to America’s classical music. That said, I believe that the Northwest Arkansas Jazz Society contributes significantly to the cultural and educational well-being of this region. I’ve enjoyed attending performances by artists welcomed to the area by the society. I was present the night that Terence Blanchard staged a brilliant performance and left the stage to enter Washington Regional Medical Center, where he underwent an emergency appendectomy. I appreciate the work done by Jazz Society and I think that I can serve on a board that continues that success. My experience includes teaching at every school level, including the College of Education and Health Professions at the University of Arkansas. I served two terms on the Board of Directors for the Fayetteville Public Library. I am a member of two of the most prominent organizations of African-American women, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., and Links Inc.

I grew up in the household of one of the first African-American psychiatrists and with the guidance of my social worker mother, I was taught the values of outreach and service. Those are the values I would bring to the board, along with a willingness to build an institution that will endure.

A resident of Fayetteville and a graduate of the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas, Tim has been with First Western Financial for ten years and currently serves as Vice President
/ Financial Advisor. He is a supporter of the arts and a believer in music's ability to nourish kindness, unity, and health.

Darren is a drummer, founding member of the Fayetteville Jazz Collective, recording engineer, and vice-president of Springdale Acoustics, Inc. He has a B.A. in Physics from the University of Arkansas and has been active in the Northwest Arkansas music scene for the past 40 years.

Shelly O’Dell is the Assistant Head of Middle School and Music Faculty at Thaden School in Bentonville. With over two decades in music education, her lifelong passion for jazz—sparked as a young saxophonist and vocalist—continues to shape her teaching. She also serves as Assistant Director of the University of Arkansas Children’s Choir, is a graduate of Leadership Benton County, and holds a Certificate in School Management and Leadership from Harvard Online. Shelly has two adult children, Molly and Liam; Liam served as bassist in the inaugural three years of the NWA Jazz All-Stars program and is now a professional jazz musician based in Austin, Texas.

Bob landed in Northwest Arkansas from the music town of Athens, Georgia by way of Nashville and Memphis. Music is definitely in his blood!  As a young man, Bob played jazz trumpet throughout high school and college.  He played trumpet in the Georgia High School All State Jazz band (and has the vinyl album to prove it!).  Bob has had a lengthy career in the performing arts, leading operations teams at Tennessee Performing Arts Center and Walton Arts Center.  He currently resides in Bella Vista with his wife, Stevie, who is a public mosaic artist. 

Originally from Seattle, Barbara is a serial entrepreneur and former New York Times blogger. She moved to Bella Vista from the Pacific Northwest in 2003, and has the distinction of opening the first drive-through espresso business in the state of Arkansas. While she grew up playing classical piano, Barbara enjoyed learning jazz standards from her grandfather, a professional jazz saxophonist in Vancouver, Canada. She is the owner and co-founder of Allan Taylor & Co. business brokerage firm (2007) and Trail Town Realty (2012). 

Barbara's two sons are both accomplished jazz musicians and alumni of the NAJS Jazz All-Stars Youth Ensemble. Barbara is passionate about supporting jazz education initiatives at NAJS and throughout NW Arkansas. She is affectionately referred to as "the Jazz Mom."