The Buzz: The JJA Podcast

For this episode of The Buzz, moderator Rick Mitchell asks two critics a generation apart, Bob Blumenthal and Hannah Edgar, where all the critics have gone. There’s more opinion about music than ever, and fewer staff jobs and outlets to back the people writing it. Bob and Hannah talk about how writers break in now, why younger critics ignore genre lines, and what mentorship gave each of them, from...

This episode of The Buzz comes from the JJA archive. In 2010, Django Reinhardt's centennial year, the JJA's Jazz Matters series at The New School in New York presented a panel titled Jazz Scholarship: The Next Generation. It opened with guitarist Paul Brady, then a member of the Hot Club of Detroit, who had written his master's thesis on Django. Brady argues that Django was, in his...

For John Coltrane's hundredth birthday, this episode of The Buzz has host Lawrence Peryer delivering a solo monologue tracing how critics heard Coltrane while he was alive, and how that judgment has shifted, or hasn't, in the sixty-five years since. The piece opens with discussion of John Tynan's 1961 Down Beat review calling Coltrane and Eric Dolphy's playing "anti-jazz,&...

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 accide...

 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). Ship...

For this episode of The 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...

Miles Davis would have turned one hundred this year. The centennial has brought the somewhat predictable wave of reissues, retrospectives, and tributes. But which Miles keeps coming back? The suit-and-narrow-lapels Miles of the fifties. Kind of Blue as sonic wallpaper. The Second Great Quintet as the canonical high point. In this episode, Howard Mandel - JJA president emeritus and author of Miles...

Jazz criticism has always operated in close quarters: small rooms, tight communities, artists who become sources and sometimes friends. That proximity is part of what makes the writing worth reading. It's also what makes the ethics complicated. This episode explores that tension. The guests have significant experience between them navigating exactly these questions, and the conversation goes...

JJA Board Member Andrew Gilbert hosts a discussion with Steve Smith (Substack “Night After Night,” former Time Out New York music editor) and Chrys Roney (editor in chief and publisher of Hot House Jazz Magazine) about the past, present, and future of jazz listings.  Inspired by Gabriel Kahane’s Atlantic essay “A Love Letter to Music Listings,” they recall how outlets like the Village Voice, the N...

Lawrence Peryer, managing editor of The Buzz, hosts a discussion about what it takes to build a sustainable career covering jazz in 2026. Chicago Tribune critic Hannah Edgar and Earshot Jazz editor Rayna Mathis discuss the realities of working in this field, from the fellowship programs that make full-time journalism possible to the complicated ethics of critiquing people you see at shows three ni...

Howard Mandel is an author, educator, journalist, and, since 1993, president of the Jazz Journalists Association. Howard's career crosses more than five decades of music journalism, from his early days writing for the Chicago Daily News to his current work as a contributor to publications worldwide. As Howard prepares to step down from his role as JJA president at year's end, we found ti...

This conversation is hosted by JJA Board Member and Chair of our Book Committee, Bob Blumenthal. Bob, along with JJA members Fiona Ross, Todd Jenkins and Katch Cartwright, share some of their book recommendations for you to consider for those on your 2025 holiday nice list. Maybe a few of the naughty people deserve some of these, too.  The JJA’s book committee votes on Book Award nominees everyJan...

In fall 2023, three veteran jazz journalists, Bill Milkowski, Rick Mitchell, and Howard Mandel, sat down for a wide-ranging conversation, a portion of which is collected here to remind us all why we fell in love with music in the first place. From first album purchases to legendary festival moments, they share the records and live performances that impacted them. Whether it's Howard's ea...

Michelle Zeto, Geoffrey Himes, and Rob Shepherd have each built careers in music journalism and broadcasting. They discuss how genre categories shape both criticism and listening, the difference between being a savant and a polymath, and whether the post-genre world is liberating or limiting. The conversation explores the role of critics as translators, the rise of playlist culture, and why attent...

Today we have JJA president Howard Mandel hosting a compelling discussion on political activism in jazz with three remarkable musicians who have dedicated their careers to both artistic excellence and social change. Our first guest is Terri Lyne Carrington, the four-time Grammy-winning drummer, composer, and producer who serves as Founder and Artistic Director of the Berklee Institute of Jazz and...

Michael Ambrosino hosts this episode of The Buzz, a discussion with Josh Antonuccio, Matt Powers, and Jon Irabagon as they explore the effects of AI on journalism, music, production, education, and jazz.  Josh is an associate professor within the media production and recording industry major in the School of Media Arts and Studies at Ohio University. He's worked extensively within higher educ...

In this episode of The Buzz, JJA board member Bob Blumenthal speaks with two 2025 book award winners: Jonathan Grasse and Elijah Wald. Jonathan Grasse teaches music at California State University, Dominguez Hills, focusing on world music, theory, and composition. He wrote the definitive English-language study of Brazilian regional music in Hearing Brazil: Music and Histories, and Minas Gerais and...

Join host Michael Ambrosino as he speaks with three veteran jazz publicists—Ann Braithwaite (Braithwaite & Katz Communications), Lydia Liebman (Lydia Liebman Promotions), and Matt Merewitz (Fully Altered Media)—about the evolving nature of jazz promotion.  The group discusses how they build relationships between artists and audiences, adapt to media fragmentation, create engaging content in th...

The 2025 JJA Awards just dropped, and in this special episode The Buzz is breaking down the winners in some of the leading categories.  Host Lawrence Peryer is joined by guests Neil Tesser and Mark Ruffin to discuss lifetime achievements, standout performers, and why some names keep winning year after year. Both guests bring unique perspectives - Mark from his years as a writer and radio programme...

Three accomplished jazz authors share their journeys from traditional publishing to successful independent careers. Join host Lawrence Peryer as Debbie Burke , Steve Cerra , and Rick Mitchell reveal the tools, economics, and creative freedom they've found in self-publishing. Learn how these writers are reshaping the jazz book world by taking control of their work - from manuscript to marketin...

This conversation between JJA members Bob Blumenthal, Ricky Ricciardi, and Fumi Tomita explores how jazz research has evolved through digital transformation.  Ricciardi describes his journey researching Louis Armstrong's career, moving from physical archives and interviews for his first book to primarily digital resources like newspaper databases, digitized periodicals, and ancestry records f...

Tomas Peña, jazz journalist of breadth with unique ties to his Puerto Rican heritage, and José Massó, best known as a Boston broadcaster (and Jazz Hero) who takes a multi-media approach to full communication of the arts in life -- speak to JJA member Michael Ambrosino, producer of Los Olvidados , a radio documentary about Pan-Latin influences on jazz.  Support for The JJA comes in part from the Ja...

Will Friedwald does it all -- books on Sinatra, Nat "King" Cole, jazz vocalists and the Great American Songbook; articles in publications including the Wall Street Journal; his own broadcasting platform and Substack, Slouching Towards Birdland. He speaks as winner of the 2024 JJA Jazz Award for Lifetime Achievement in Jazz Journalism to Chicago-based writer, broadcaster and JJA board mem...

Playing The Changes: Jazz in An African University and On the Road  is the account by Catherine and Darius Brubeck (daughter-in-law and son of Dave Brubeck) of their 25-year sojourn in South Africa, where they expanded the jazz landscape, establishing a music program at University of KwaZulu-Natal. Todd S. Jenkins interviews the couple in this latest Author's Series episode of The Buzz: The P...

The Jazz Omnibus: 21st-Century Photos and Writings by Members of the Jazz Journalists Association  is a 600-page anthology published in hardcover, paperback and ebook editions by Cymbal Press. In this edition of The Buzz, Lawrence Peryer interviews the team that put it together -- editor David Adler, copy chief Terri Hinte, editorial advisor and JJA president Howard Mandel, and Cymbal Press princi...