Hermon Mehari’s music — all its improvised twists and contortions — inhabits his slight frame.

The 24-year-old jazz phenom doubles over in concentration and snaps his body backward as he filters new ideas through his trumpet. Lost in the music, the most prominent member of Kansas City’s new generation of brilliant jazz musicians pushes himself to discover hidden nuances in an original composition.

Mehari’s solo is staggeringly eloquent. Propelled by longtime friends and collaborators bassist Ben Leifer and drummer Ryan Lee, the solo’s innovative phrasing and exceptional beauty would be celebrated at any of the world’s renowned jazz venues. Here at 1911 Restaurant & Lounge, an audience of five politely applauds.

It’s a familiar scene at Kansas City’s music venues.

“It’s frustrating,” Mehari admits. “But I accept that on a given night there might not be that many people who want to go out and hear a jazz gig.”

If audiences won’t come to Mehari’s jazz gigs, he’s willing to bring his music to them. Mehari, along with like-minded peers, regularly engages in crossover projects that attract large audiences of people in their 20s and 30s.

Crowds of hip-hop fans have packed the Blue Room to hear Mehari’s band Diverse work with emcees including Reach and Les Izmore. They’ve done full-album re-creations of A Tribe Called Quest’s “The Low End Theory” and Mos Def’s “Black on Both Sides.” And on a recent Friday night, Mehari assembled 10 performers at RecordBar and oversaw an immaculate reproduction of Michael Jackson’s hits.

Mehari’s extended solo on an instrumental version of “Human Nature” was one of the evening’s few moments of pure jazz. Members of the young, multiracial audience pumped their fists and shouted encouragement at each new twist of Mehari’s imaginative improvisation.

Jazz may be Mehari’s primary passion, but he’s become the catalyst for a “new genre” in Kansas City, Leifer says.

“These collaborations came from Hermon wanting to stretch out and work with more of the many amazing musicians we have in Kansas City that are a part of other scenes,” Leifer says. “In doing this he has bridged a major gap between these groups.”

Jazz’s lowly status as fringe music, ironically, has allowed Mehari and fellow musicians to conduct experiments without much interference. Tiny but appreciative audiences of open-minded music lovers have given musicians like Mehari the freedom to experiment at gigs, infusing yesterday’s jazz with new concepts.

“The music has evolved quite a bit while nobody was looking,” says Stan Kessler, a veteran local jazz trumpeter.

So who’s the man behind this artistic renaissance?

Born in Texas to Eritrean immigrants and raised in Jefferson City, Mehari is smart and ambitious. He accepted a scholarship offered by Bobby Watson at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance, even though more prestigious programs recruited Mehari. He says that Watson, the school’s director of jazz studies, has become “a father figure, teacher and friend.”

Dan Thomas, assistant director of jazz studies at UMKC, says he enjoyed watching Mehari grow into a leader.

“He really became an inspiration to and somewhat of a measuring stick for his peers,” Thomas says.

Outside the academic setting, Mehari has remained singularly devoted to music. His spartan lifestyle is remarkably free of distractions. He lives with several roommates to minimize expenses and cites espresso as his biggest vice. He practices trumpet daily and brings his formidable organizational skills to bear on his full schedule.

“I love music,” Mehari explains. “It is what I do and what I am.”

Willing as Mehari may be to work in other genres, Mehari’s jazz credentials are impeccable. He’s already achieved more than many professional musicians accomplish in a lifetime.

He won the 2008 National Trumpet Competition Jazz Division and came in second at the 2010 International Trumpet Guild Jazz Competition held in Sydney, Australia. Mehari’s band Diverse won the 2008 Gene Harris Jazz Competition in Boise, Idaho. Mehari has toured Europe three times.

He doesn’t take many nights off. In addition to leading Diverse, Mehari is a member of KC Sound Collective and BeardKCrazy. He also sits in with bands including Hearts of Darkness, New Jazz Order and Popes of Dope. His restless energy and insistence on perfection have been a boon for Kansas City jazz fans.

Unhappy with the quality of music performed at the Mutual Musicians Foundation’s late-night jam sessions, Mehari revived music downstairs at the historic landmark. He and a cadre of friends volunteer their talents there after midnight on Saturdays.

Mehari is the most prominent of a wave of remarkable students who began pouring out of UMKC’s jazz program about five years ago, when Bobby Watson’s influence became established. Mehari and his peers have vastly improved the quality of the music coming out of Kansas City, even as they’ve unintentionally wreaked havoc on the jazz economy.

“It’s a blessing and a curse,” Kessler notes. “You have an influx of some really great players, which is exciting and welcome. On the other hand, the market is flooded with too many musicians and not enough work for everybody.”

The scene was in desperate need of a jolt. As legends like Ahmad Alaadeen, Jay McShann and Claude “Fiddler” Williams died, Kansas City’s jazz scene fell into an artistic rut. Jazz venues became dreary repositories of stale standards. The genre had become predictable and stagnant — concepts that are a curse to the improvisational and progressive nature of jazz.

Mehari and his youthful colleagues are intent on changing the preconception that jazz is safe and boring. It won’t be easy. Sales for and attendance at gigs around the country are declining. Even Esperanza Spalding, the 27-year-old widely touted as the future of jazz, failed sell out the 500-seat Gem Theater where she appeared in October with acclaimed saxophonist Joe Lovano.

Mehari says he doesn’t understand why jazz audiences are dwindling.”This is a great time for the artistic quality of jazz,” Mehari says. “It is as diverse as it has ever been. There’s something everyone can enjoy.”

It’s largely a matter of exposure. Although their aesthetic sensibility is more in line with Kanye West than Glenn Miller, jazz acts like Diverse and Spalding aren’t even on the radar of many consumers of music. Mark Lowrey, an area musician with a penchant for playing jazz interpretations of Radiohead, shares Mehari’s frustration.

“It’s not boot camp or leprosy treatments,” Lowrey exclaims about jazz performances. “It’s paying a five- to ten-dollar cover on any night of the week to witness an abstract improvisational conversation that you can often tap your foot to.”

Whether out of necessity or genuine philosophy, Mehari doesn’t worry about labels.

“I don’t consider jazz my career. I consider music my career,” he says.

Mehari regularly drums up bookings in unconventional settings. Hours after performing for 1,600 people with Bobby Watson’s big band at the Kauffman Center’s open house in September, Diverse played a jazz gig for an audience of fewer than 25 at Jeff Harshbarger’s alternative jazz night at the indie rock-oriented RecordBar.

Engagements of that nature aren’t particularly lucrative, so Mehari also works as a music instructor at Kansas City Kansas Community College where he leads students in the Kansas City High School All Star Jazz Ensemble. He isn’t much older than his charges, but on an October evening he delivered a fiery motivational lecture that revealed the hard-won conviction of an elder.

“This music is not something you can just casually do,” he tells a few teenagers. “It’s not how busy you are — it’s how much you want it.”

Mehari’s passionate proselytizing inspires his wide-eyed pupils. They perform the next piece with renewed conviction.

“That was fun,” a surprised young trumpeter exclaims.

The teenager may not realize that jazz was once all about fun. One of the pieces he and his band rehearsed under Mehari’s supervision was the raucous Kansas City jazz classic “Moten Swing.” Written in 1933 when Kansas City was the center of music’s universe, the song was part of the soundtrack to unspeakable decadence.

Back at the Michael Jackson tribute, Mehari wears a black fedora and dances with as much enthusiasm as the most uninhibited members of the capacity audience. With a little luck and continued diligence, Mehari may eventually attract similarly dynamic audiences to his jazz gigs. For now, he’ll have to interpret the energetic response at RecordBar as another small step in his ongoing struggle.