The Buzz: The JJA Podcast

About The Buzz: The JJA Podcast

The Jazz Journalists Association is a membership organization founded in 1986. We promote the creation and dissemination of accurate, ethical, informed journalism on all jazz’s genres, and encourage innovative use of media to spur the growth, development and education of audiences for jazz. Public programs include Seeing Jazz Photography Master Classes, The Buzz podcast, celebrations of Jazz Heroes and Jazz Awards, and the website JJANews.org. Theme "Big Vic" composed by John Michaels Featuring Makaya McCraven Geoff Vidaland Mark Dunlap recorded by Doug Hewitt. Podcast edited by Wiz Petta.

Publisher

The Jazz Journalists Association

Category

arts · music

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

1 Apr 2022

Latest episode

3 Aug 2026

Latest episodes

69 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   3 Aug 2026

   Midstream, Crossing That River: Ruth Griggs on the Northampton Jazz Festival

   For this episode of The Buzz, Lawrence Peryer talks with 2025 JJA Jazz Hero Ruth Griggs, longtime director of the Northampton Jazz Festival, about the trade-off facing a fifteen-year-old, mostly-free festival built for a loyal, older jazz audience: book an artist who can pull in a younger crowd, or keep playing to the room you already have. Griggs traces the festival's history from its accidental start in 2011, when five men more interested in reviving a defunct food fair backed into a jazz f...

2. 

   6 Jul 2026

   "We Should Talk About Music": Matthew Shipp and Ethan Iverson on Writing as Practice

   For this episode of The Buzz, JJA Book Committee chair Bob Blumenthal speaks with the winners of the 2026 JJA Jazz Awards’ two Book of the Year categories: pianist Matthew Shipp, honored for Black Mystery School Pianists and Other Writings (Autonomedia), and pianist and critic Ethan Iverson, honored as the writer behind Oceans of Time: The Musical Autobiography of Billy Hart (Cymbal Press). Shipp and Iverson are both working musicians who write, and the conversation keeps circling back ...

3. 

   1 Jun 2026

   Zan Stewart, JJA Lifetime Achievement Honoree: A Real Jazz Advocate

   For this episode ofThe Buzz, JJA President Emeritus Howard Mandel speaks with Zan Stewart, the JJA's 2026 Lifetime Achievement in Jazz Journalism honoree. Zan Stewart spent thirty-five years covering jazz as a beat reporter writing weekly features, overnight reviews, and club listings through long-term runs at the Los Angeles Times and the Newark Star-Ledger. His liner notes to Eric Dolphy: The Complete Prestige Recordings earned an ASCAP–Deems Taylor Award. He is also a working tenor saxopho...

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

66,530

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.5 / 5

2 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 47 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

40

Social presence

0

YouTube

76

Engagement

60

Contact The Buzz: The JJA Podcast

Guest appearances

Does not typically book guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.