Tim Bell has been the Director of Jazz Studies at UW-Parkside since 1975. Beginning in 1978, the UW-Parkside Jazz Ensemble became a perennial favorite at the Elmhurst Jazz Festival, consistently winning outstanding band and soloist honors. In 1979, Professor Bell was named Outstanding Teacher of the Year at UW-Parkside. He received the University of Wisconsin Regents Award for teaching excellence in 1993.

Professor Bell has extensive professional experience as a classical clarinetist and woodwind doubler. He has performed with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Skylight Opera, Milwaukee Ballet, touring productions of Broadway shows, and prominent national entertainment headliners including Burt Bacharach, Henry Mancini, Aretha Franklin, The Temptations, Stan Kenton, Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Milton Berle, Rita Moreno, Tom Jones, Jerry Lewis, Tom Bosley, Toni Tennille and Sonny and Cher.

Mr. Bell is highly regarded as a soloist, clinician, and adjudicator at the state and national level. He has brought renowned artists and educators Leon Breeden, Jamey Aebersold, Maynard Ferguson, Frank Mantooth, Steve Houghton, Fred Sturm, Alan Vizutti, Ed Shaughnessy, Lou Fischer, Ed Soph, Neil Slater and the University of North Texas One O'Clock Lab Band to UW-Parkside.

As a student at the University of North Texas, has played clarinet in the band and orchestra, and lead alto sax in the internationally renowned One O'Clock Lab Band. As the first freshman to win a chair in the One O'Clock band, he competed in national contests, performed on three occasions for President Lyndon Johnson at the White House with Duke Ellington and Stan Kenton, and spent a month performing in Mexico on a tour sponsored by the U.S. State Department.