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Playing the tenor saxophone requires a certain set of skills. You have to press the right keys at the right time, control the air rushing from your lungs through your mouth and always watch your tempo.

Tim Warfield has all these skills, but he doesn't just play the tenor sax. He plays jazz. And to the York, Pa., native, that involves more than just technique.

"My intent is to translate into something that's human," he says of his live shows. "I want to touch people in a way that will provoke not only thought, but if we're lucky, something spiritual."

A performance by Warfield in Philadelphia impressed a teenaged Alex Silverbook. Now the Sherwood High School instrumental music teacher and Warfield are close friends.

"I don't think I've been to a concert where people haven't been tapping their feet or moving their hips because he's swinging so hard," Silverbook says.

The energy he describes will be on full display when the Tim Warfield Quartet takes the stage at Olney Theatre Center on Saturday evening. Yet Warfield is more than a frenzied performer; he's a jazz disciple.

In his two decades as a professional musician, Warfield has had ample opportunity to reach people with his classic hard bop style. It's a love affair that started in childhood when Warfield would sit for hours listening to Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rawlins, Art Blakey and John Coltrane. At age 9, Warfield picked up his first saxophone, an alto. He listened to the classics for inspiration, but knew that doing is as important as listening.

"Some people say, ‘I'm going to study Miles Davis.' To me, that's a really narrow point of discovery," he says.

After switching to tenor sax in high school, Warfield traveled down I-83 to enroll in Howard University's Jazz Studies program. Over the next two years, he learned about the art from professors like program founder Dr. Arthur C. Dawkins.

"They were very encouraging," he says of his teachers, "but in all honesty, what I've chosen to play and how I've chosen to play, it came from me."

After leaving Howard, he led bands in the Washington area and Central Pennsylvania, hitting his professional stride in 1990 when he was chosen to play in New Orleans trumpeter Marlon Jordan's quintet. A year later, Warfield played on "Tough Young Tenors," an anthology the New York Times placed on its list of the top 10 recordings of the year. He soon gained national exposure on "The Today Show" and Bill Cosby's version of "You Bet Your Life." Legends including Dizzy Gillespie and Jimmy Smith have invited Warfield to sit in with them, and he has branched out on his own with his albums "Cool Blue" (1995) and "Jazz Is" (2002). His latest, "One for Shirley," is a tribute to organist Shirley Scott, his late friend and collaborator.

Jazz doesn't cram the airwaves as it once did. Modern icons Wynton Marsalis and Terence Blanchard seem more like ambassadors than stars. Warfield's ability has opened doors and earned him a paycheck, but he knows the importance of passing his knowledge to the next generation. Paul Carr, a former Howard classmate and noted sax player himself, believes in the unwritten law that jazz musicians have an obligation to teach what they know.

"If you don't pass it on, it just kind of dies," Carr explains. "Jazz isn't the most popular music, but it goes on because we pass it on."

For his part, Warfield has travelled to colleges like Penn State and the University of North Texas, teaching master classes and spreading his philosophy that jazz comes from the heart, not just the body. He also serves as an artist in residence at Messiah College in Grantham, Pa. Although he doesn't run classes himself, he steps in to teach students technique, chord progressions and the essence of jazz.

"One of the things I tell them is that I can't make you a jazz musician," he says. "I can give you information, but what you choose to do with it is up to you."

Perhaps his passion for education started with his mother Justine, a school teacher who instilled in him the logic to accompany the talent. Under her guidance, Warfield learned that you have to comprehend one step before taking another. It's a common idea, but it's something he emphasizes in the classroom.

"They have to have a certain understanding of point A to get to point B. You never want them to have to back to point A. The goal is to get them to point C," he explains.

Last month in New Orleans, Warfield took time off from shows at Jazz Fest and with pianist Jesse McBride to teach Tulane University students a thing or two about his craft. He is so passionate about helping that he's bringing a group of up-and-comers to his show at Olney on Saturday. Warfield says it's a necessity, not just the right thing to do.

"As the masters pass away, you have more of the industry themselves choosing artists to present to the general public. Sometimes you get a lot of technique . . . but there's a certain human perspective that these artists haven't accessed," he observes.

So Warfield picks his sidemen carefully because he believes in giving the best opportunities to artists admired by the people who play the music rather than the people who sell it.

"They're going to do it on their own, but it's always better if they can get with somebody who has some sort of name for credibility and to figure out how things are done musically as well," he says.

In Tim Warfield, bandleaders of tomorrow aren't getting just a name. They're getting a mentor.

Jazz at Olney presents the Tim Warfield Quartet at 8 p.m. Saturday in the Olney Theatre Center, 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Road, Olney. Tickets are $26, with group discounts available. Call 301-924-3400 or visit www.

olneytheatre.

org.