With a placeslike the Jazz House offering live music on Fridays and Saturdays on Pacific in Bremerton, and gatherings like the first annual 2007 Care To Jazz festival, which played through the rain at McCormick Woods Port Orchard earlier this summer, things are beginning to swing in Kitsap County.

Up north, local live music organizer Bub Pratt brings in jazz, blues, bluegrass bands and beyond Fridays and Saturdays at the martini bar-style setting at the Treehouse Lounge, above the Magnolia Cafe on Front Street in Poulsbo.

A grassroots organization that is looking to take that collective energy, rev it up and rally support throughout the rest of the community will be coming to Pratt’s neck of the woods, and featuring the Bub Pratt Trio at 5:30 p.m. Aug. 31 at the Bayside Broiler in Poulsbo.

The group will be recruiting area jazz lovers to join and contribute to the newly formed club of musicians and enthusiasts — the Kitsap Jazz Society.

The society’s ambition is: “to promote education, preservation and advancement of Jazz as an American art form in Kitsap County,” chief organizer Clarence Nelson said in a press release.

Still in its organizational stages — hence the upcoming membership meeting — the Kitsap Jazz Society hopes in the long term to foster jazz awareness and enjoyment by providing it to the public through festivals and other performances along with organized jam sessions, workshops, clinics and by getting music into schools.

They’ve already begun to get their feet wet in helping organize the Peninsula Community Health Services’ Care to Jazz Festival and also with what Nelson called a very well received first membership drive July 6 in Bremerton.

“We had close to 30 people sign up that night,” Nelson said. “I didn’t quite know what to expect being new in the community, I figured maybe a few people would sign up, but to have 30, that shows the desire is there.”

KJS offers individual, family and business memberships with discounts for students, seniors and disabled persons. Registered members will receive the Jazz View newsletter and reduced admission to KJS events.

Dues for individuals are $40, families: $50, and senior/student/disabled persons: $25 — which will contribute to the KJS annual fund.

“The KJS Annual Fund is the backbone of the Kitsap Jazz Society’s programs and services,” Nelson said.

While enabling the society to help pay to bring in top-rated musicians along with promotional and technical support, the KJS annual fund will also support planned scholarship awards, a KJS Web site and the Jazz View Newsletter — all of which are currently in the works, Nelson said.

The organizational task is immense, especially with a volunteer staff of jazz lovers with day jobs — like Nelson, an established musician turned promoter, who by day is the director of contract administration for the Bremerton Housing Authority. But on the side he just built a recording studio in the basement of his house.

KJS has already sought out organizational guidance from other established Jazz Societies like the Jazz Society of Oregon, the Tuscon Jazz Society and the Los Angeles Jazz Society.

The Society of Oregon is a quarter-century-old non-profit organization which sponsors shows and workshops while giving out scholarships and grants across Oregon. They also publish a monthly magazine — Jazzscene — to which members receive a free subscription.

It also has a wide-sweeping comprehensive Web site the features CD and show reviews along with featured musicians and a Hall of Fame, all contributed by members.

The LA Jazz Society is heavy into programs like Jazz in School and an after school program for kids call Jazz CoolCats.

The fledgling Kitsap Jazz Society has taken influence from them all.