Lawyer Derek Johnson opened his Harlem brownstone Sunday night to help the Jazz Museum in Harlem raise $60,000 – about a quarter of its current annual budget.

The house party had a warm and spontaneous mood, with a seemingly endless supply of new eats and new guests arriving. Whenever it felt right, musicians – including the museum’s co-directors, Loren Schoenberg and Christian McBride – picked up their instruments and played a soulful tune or two. No excuses were necessary among the guests who instantly dropped their conversations to listen, among them television newswoman and cellist Paula Zahn and actress Polly Draper. There was extra applause for the museum’s youth ensemble as well as for pianist Sarah McLawler, a musician who opened for Art Tatum.

The event gave a hint of what the future home of the museum might be like. The Jazz Museum in Harlem’s board – whose members include Leonard Garment, Wynton Marsalis, Ken Burns, and Billy Taylor – is now working to make a permanent home of a 9,000-square-foot brownstone on Lenox Avenue, while a more ambitious plan to be part of a redeveloped Victoria Theater slowly sorts itself out.

“It’s a modest and attainable goal that would have a community benefit,” Mr. Schoenberg said. He priced the purchase and renovation of the building between $6 and $7 million, and said the annual budget of the museum would likely triple or quadruple.

The museum has grown quietly in its early years, holding a conference here and there, and planning regular speaking and performance events that take place at other Harlem cultural institutions. There is also the growing archive, featuring thousands of hours of recordings, books, and memorabilia – although most of it is in storage because the museum does not have space to house it.

The grassroots approach so far has helped the museum figure out what it wants to be and prove that there’s demand. International tourists knock a few times a week on the museum’s office door on 126th Street looking for exhibits.

A strong part of the museum’s identity has become the evolution of Harlem. The neighborhood is dynamic, and so the museum is willing, even pleased, to be dynamic, too. “The museum for us is about education and community, not bricks and mortar. I’d be very happy with this modest brownstone, and let Harlem itself become the museum,” Mr. Schoenberg said.

The museum is a complement to Jazz at Lincoln Center as well as Harlem institutions such as the Apollo Theater and the Studio Museum in Harlem, Mr. Schoenberg said.

The director of the youth ensemble, Tia Fuller, is looking to do more than turn young people onto jazz. “I see my purpose as not only redirecting students toward music but to help them establish and nurture their talent in whatever they choose to do,” Ms. Fuller said.

agordon@nysun.com